Dinosaurs In Gensokyo
by FlutterChaos
Summary: Dinosaurs have appeared in Gensokyo overnight and are roaming far and wide. It's up to Reimu to solve this peculiar incident, with the help of Marisa, Sanae and anyone else who can be bothered to help her. Multi-chapter and action-heavy. Warning: this fic may contain footage of teenage girls beating up dinosaurs.
1. Outset

**A/N: So, this is my first Touhou fanfic, though not my first fic on this site. Hope you like it! Dinosaur craziness abound.**

Reimu Hakurei stirred sleepily from within the Hakurei shrine, a throbbing pain pounding through her temples. She groaned and rolled over onto the floor, bleary-eyed and worn out from the events of last night, just lying there as she tried to focus on anything around her. All she could make out through the constant pain was a vague blur of colour. Maybe a table. Drinking with Yukari was not supposed to go this far.

The shrine maiden shook her head groggily. In the distance, the sounds of animals roaring could be heard, making her wince uncomfortably as the noise went right through her ears. Some kind of wild beast running lose through the woods, probably, but right now she wasn't in the mood to care. She couldn't even remember what happened last night. What time was it?

 _Ugh. I need more sleep._

It was beginning to come back to her, now. Sake. Lots of sake, late into the night...and a very weird conversation about high-fiving a fish. She remembered that much and not a lot else. How could you high-five a fish, anyway? It had fins. She had more than a pressing feeling that Yukari had initiated that conversation.

She struggled to her feet, holding onto the table for support, and slowly felt her way over to the wooden cupboard at the end of the room. Through half-closed eyes, the shrine maiden reached out blindly with one hand and managed to grab hold of a bundle of medicinal herbs kept there for safekeeping.

Chewing on the herbs, Reimu soon felt them take effect. The pain in her head faded away into a dull ache and the room was no longer so blurry. She opened her eyes and held her head in her hands until she could actually see straight again.

 _That's better._

There was another roar from outside the shrine, startling her out of her reverie. Somehow, it sounded much closer than the first one.

Frowning, Reimu walked over to the table and took hold of the gohei resting there, the purification rod which she always kept at her side. Something wasn't right here. There shouldn't be wild beasts wandering this close to the Hakurei shrine.

Sleepily, she reached the exit of the shrine and slid the door open.

The bright sunshine of the late morning greeted her radiantly, prompting the shrine maiden to shield her face from its intense glare. Still holding her head in one hand, she looked out at the ring of trees surrounding the shrine, just a peaceful clearing with the sound of birdsong to add to the ambience. There was nothing out of the ordinary at all. Just another day in Gensokyo.

There was a stegosaurus in front of the shrine.

Reimu stared at the dinosaur in astonishment. Four-legged, green skin, a series of sharp ridges all across its back, with a thorny tail…yes, it was definitely a stegosaurus. It was munching away at the grass and the plants without a care in the world.

 _A dinosaur,_ the shrine maiden thought, her mind blank. _Right. I must be dreaming._

She blinked and rubbed her eyes, pinched herself in the arm, then slapped herself on the cheek. Nothing happened. The tegosaurus continued eating peacefully as if everything was completely normal.

There was the sound of the mighty roar from before, and an allosaurus lumbered into view, sporting deadly claws and the jaw of a vicious carnivore. The beast was huge, standing almost as high as the shrine itself as it stampeded through the clearing at high speed. The ground shook slightly with its passing.

Without any warning, the creature suddenly darted forward and grabbed the stegosaurus off the ground. Powerful jaws closed onto its prey's neck with a single _crunch_ before the creature could even cry out, and the allosaurus began to devour the body on the spot.

Reimu raised her eyes to the scene taking place before her and scrunched up her nose. It didn't look very pretty.

"Seriously?" she said weakly. "Dinosaurs in Gensokyo?"

There was another small tremor, and a pack of velociraptors raced across the clearing before headed down the forest path, howling excitedly. The sight of a diplodocus could be seen rising above the trees in the distance. Above that, pterodactyls were flying overhead through the skies far and wide.

Another earthquake shook the ground, then another, and another. Whatever manner of beasts had been unleashed upon the land, there were certainly a lot of them. Dinosaurs were roaming free, and as far as she could tell , they were _everywhere._

 _I definitely had too much to drink last night,_ Reimu thought. _I'm imagining things. Dinosaurs are extinct. Either I woke up in a_ completely _different world than the Gensokyo I know, or…_

She really didn't want to think about the alternative. Besides, it didn't matter. This wasn't real. A really detailed illusion that Yukari had probably set up to mess with her. Again.

The shrine maiden gazed up at the bloodied allosaurus tearing away at the flesh of the dead stegosaurus, too busy with its meal to pay attention to her. She could smell the overpowering stench of blood from here. It certainly _felt_ real…

Without another thought, she walked back into the Hakurei shrine and slid the door shut behind her, then went back to bed to get some well-needed sleep.

There was another dinosaur roar from outside the shrine. Annoyed, Reimu pulled her pillow over her ears and fell asleep five minutes later.

Hopefully everything would be back to normal when she woke up.

* * *

The shrine maiden was rudely awakened a few hours later by a small lizardlike creature standing on her chest. She blinked sleepily and yelled out in alarm, shoving the beast off her. It was then that she realised that there were several of them in the room.

"Oh, for goodness' _sake!_ "

The tiny creatures were hopping around the room like mad, clutching at every piece of clothing they could get their little claws on as they ripped them to shreds. Reimu eyed what was left of her pillow.

"Out!" she said loudly, rounding the lizards up with her gohei and pushing them out of the room. How had they managed to open the door? "Shoo! All of you!"

The shrine maiden kicked the last of the creatures outside and stopped in her tracks: the bony remains of the stegosaurus were lying on the ground right in front of her. In the distance, another might roar went up somewhere in the forest. Nothing had changed.

 _So...this is real, after all. I'm not dreaming. This doesn't make any sense! Dinosaurs?!What in the world is going on here?_

Dinosaurs. Even the little creatures which had invaded the shrine – small, cute annoying little things, but dinosaurs nonetheless. Gensokyo was filled with dinosaurs! What had happened? Had she been transported to some alternate world? First the hangover, and now _this…_

Another diplodocus' head dipped above the trees as it fed on the vegetation. There were more stegosauruses gathering around the shrine, too. Reimu felt herself growing uneasy and tense in their presence, not used to having so many visitors like this. Of course, more donations were always welcome, but...

What would happen when they ate all the grass? As she recalled, stegosauruses were not hostile, but that was no excuse to take over the place.

The shrine maiden fumed in silence. This was unacceptable. Still, she could at least be proper about it.

"Excuse me," she said loudly, addressing the dinosaurs collectively in a huff. "Yes, you. You are not allowed to – to _graze_ here. You're not even supposed to be here. Dinosaurs aren't allowed to roam the grounds of the Hakurei Shrine!" She didn't know if that was a rule, but it might as well be. "Therefore, I ask that all of you leave here at once! Move it!" She glared at the group of unresponsive stegosauruses. "Are any of you even listening to me?"

The munch of vegetation was her only answer. It was like addressing a flock of sheep.

Reimu paused for a moment. Youkai extermination was her specialty, although she had also fought humans for similar reasons…but _dinosaurs?_ Was that allowed? She couldn't exactly start exterminating every dinosaur she saw. Or could she?

Maybe dinosaur youkai were allowed. Could you even _have_ a dinosaur youkai?

Frustrated, the shrine maiden walked up to a stegosaurus and hit it on the head with her purification rod. The animal took no notice of her and continued eating nonchalantly.

"Look!" she said angrily. "Stop eating the plants. I have to water them. I want you out of here in five minutes, or…or…"

There was a familiar rumble across the ground and the allosaurus from earlier suddenly reappeared, looming over the clearing and casting a dark shadow over her. Its mouth opened to reveal two rows of sharp teeth, blood and dead flesh still sticking to them from its previous meal.

With savage intent, the allosaurus reached down and lifted a stegosaurus up in the air, then smashed it down into the ground again to devour another of the creatures. Petrified, the remaining dinosaurs went into a mad rush to escape, fleeing down the forest path at a hobbling pace.

"Thank you!" Reimu called after them, glad to see them leave. "That's better. Much better." She turned to the vicious allosaurus, pointing at it with a stern finger. "And that goes for you, too! Out!"

The carnivore looked up from its meal to fix her with its predatory eyes for a second. Then it lashed down at her with a claw as big as her head.

Instinctively, she brought up a magical barrier which deflected the brunt of the attack; nevertheless, the impact still sent her flying backwards a short distance to land painfully in the dirt. Reimu rose up in the air reflexively, the Yin-Yang orbs floating on either side of her as she gained altitude. She had just about had enough.

There was another thud, and a _second_ allosaurus emerged from the forest, claws and teeth ready to shed blood. Its eyes immediately alighted on her, seeing her as easy prey. Reimu swiftly flew up higher and higher until she out of reach of its flashing claws.

"Now I'm only going to say this once more," she said in as dignified a manner as she could muster, as the two dinosaurs continued swatting at her like you would a fly. "No dinosaurs allowed! Not in Gensokyo, not in this forest, and _especially_ not anywhere near the shrine of Haku - "

There was a great _crash_ as the first allosaurus drove its muscular foot through one of the central pillars of the shrine. The building trembled slightly, a great cloud of dust billowing out.

Reimu felt her grip tighten on her weapon. That did it. Nobody attacked her shrine.

" _Now_ you've done it," she whispered.

She flew downwards at an angle and released a barrage of ofuda at her opponents, the anti-youkai charms burying themselves deep into the skin of the two allosauruses whilst they continually slashed at her. The projectiles were more effective against youkai than dinosaurs, but that didn't mean they wouldn't hurt. Sure enough, the two beasts howled in pain from the attack and charged forward as one, trying to pin her down.

 _I haven't prepared any spellcards,_ the shrine maiden thought, finding herself empty-handed. _That's what happens when you get jumped by a dinosaur before lunch time._ _I guess I'll just have to make do, then._

She cut across the first dinosaur's claws and drew dangerously near to the second one's mouth. It lunged at her with its jaws snapping, but she fired another volley of ofuda into its throat and withdrew before it could counterattack. The other allosaurus roared loudly with a volume which made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, then attacked her with both claws at once. Breathing hard, she blocked the first claw with the purification rod, then plunged downwards to earth before the second claw could land.

The second dinosaur clutched its neck where she had wounded it, then raised a giant foot to crush her into the ground. Reimu swiftly flew out of the way and fired another dozen ofuda at its descending leg. It wasn't quite enough: the force of the allosaurus' stamp caused another tremor across the entire ground, so that even the Hakurei shrine trembled with the aftershock.

 _I'm not doing much damage at all,_ the shrine maiden realised. _This isn't a standard danmaku battle. The ofuda are like paper cuts to these creatures; since they aren't youkai, the purification charms won't affect them._

She was going to need spellcards, somehow. Either that or resign herself to flying around these two dinosaurs for the next two hours whilst firing tiny little pellets which annoyed them. It was annoying her, too.

Or maybe she didn't need to do that after all…

Changing her tactics, Reimu suddenly flew away from the shrine altogether and headed deep into the forest. As she thought, the allosauruses immediately gave chase and charged after her at full speed, away from the Hakurei shrine.

 _Come on!_

She increased her speed, going faster and faster through the woods until everything was a blur around her. There were even more dinosaurs here, too, more than she could have ever dreamed of: ankylosauruses and brontosauruses lumbering across her path, a herd of triceratops feeding in a group, and what looked like an archaeopteryx from overhead...It made her wonder just how much of Gensokyo had been taken over by these animals…

The shrine maiden reached her target at the next bend of the forest path: a massive oak tree with a thick trunk stood here proudly, grown rotten with age over the years. She had heard some time ago that it was scheduled to be cut down by the residents of the Human Village. Maybe she could save them some trouble.

Reimu came to a stop right in front of the tree and waited for her pursuers to arrive. She didn't have to wait very long.

Seconds later, the first allosaurus rounded the corner. Still running towards her with all of its might, the creature drew closer and closer to the shrine maiden and opened its jaws wide to devour her in a single powerful bite –

She threw herself out of the way and the allosaurus collided into the great oak tree with full force. Blood flowed from its cracked skull as it slumped against the damaged trunk, before its body slid to the forest floor.

 _One more._

The second allosaurus arrived just a few steps behind and charged straight at Reimu with an ear-shattering roar. Unpexctedly, the dinosaur started to slow down upon seeing its companion's body on the ground. It stared at the shrine maiden coldly, and then moved forward at a more moderate pace. Avoiding the tree.

 _Uh-oh. It's not falling for it._

She had barely enough time to dodge in the narrow space of the forest, before the allosaurus rushed past her and turned to attack again. The carnivore's jaws snapped towards her head, and she threw up the magical barrier to defend herself, the impact jolting through her body like electricity.

For a moment, her gaze fell upon the sight of the cracked trunk.

With her heart in her mouth, Reimu whirled around and released one last barrage of okuda at the base of the great rotting tree, cutting through what little wood was keeping it together at all. The collision with the first allosaurus had weakened it further.

As the shrine maiden watched, the tree slowly hurtled downwards and crushed the body of the remaining dinosaur beneath a solid ton of bark. The allosaurus let out one last shriek, and then lay still.

Slowly, Reimu floated down to the ground and breathed a sigh of relief. That had been close. She had half a mind to sleep with her spellcards in future.

 _So…dinosaurs. Dinosaurs in Gensokyo._

She had far too many questions to ask. The dinosaurs had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, without any reason, and now they were _everywhere._ Such things did not happen overnight without a reason. The only thing Reimu could think…was that somebody had summoned the creatures here...

 _Summoning means magic. Magic means Marisa. But how could you summon an entire_ species _to Gensokyo, just like that? And why? What happened last night?_

She wondered how the other residents of Gensokyo were faring. The way things were, Gensokyo was in danger. The youkai could probably handle themselves well enough against the dinosaurs, but not the Human Village…

"An incident in Gensokyo," Reimu said to herself quietly. "A dinosaur incident."

She already knew she was going to get to the bottom of this. The only problem was where to _start._


	2. Diplodocus Races

**A/N: Thanks for all the reviews! Hope you continue to enjoy the fic.**

The Human Village was in complete pandemonium.

People were screaming and running for their lives from the prehistoric beasts which had mysteriously appeared in Gensokyo overnight. Everywhere you looked, dinosaurs were rampaging through the streets and attacking everything in their path. A brontosaurus was trampling entire houses underfoot, blissfully unaware of the chaos going on as they reached up with their long neck to feed on the higher foliage; packs of hungry raptors were gleefully chasing farmers and peasants round every corner, claws already bloodied and eager to feast again; pterodactyls descended upon the crop fields from the sky and left the harvest in total ruin. Within an hour, the whole place had been virtually overrun.

Nobody knew where the dinosaurs had come from, or why they were here. Great tremors shook the earth frequently and more of the creatures emerged, devouring livestock and hunting the villagers down in broad daylight. A bale of hay had caught fire, quickly spreading to several thatched houses and burning them to the ground…

As panic rose, the villagers retreated into their homes and fearfully locked their doors to hide from the dinosaurs. It wasn't long before the roaming brontosaurus crushed another straw hut beneath is feet, and then another, forcing the residents back out into the raptor-infested streets. Desperately, the people tried to defend themselves with flimsy pitchforks and other primitive weapons on hand. Their attacks had little effect on the beasts, and only a few raptors were slain.

With hundreds of dinosaurs now roaming free all over Gensokyo, their roars echoing out across the surrounding forest every hour, the situation seemed completely hopeless. No matter how many of the creatures were driven back, more and more of them would appear until the Human Village was overwhelmed completely…

Keine Kamisharasawa stepped out into the centre of the town square, surveying the scenes of chaos around her through cool brown eyes.

 _Dinosaurs?_ she thought. _What nonsense is this? This isn't how I left the Human Village last night._

A utahraptor ran towards her, jaws snapping at her head. The were-hakutaku blasted it off its feet, only to see three more take its place just seconds later. It was alarming how many of the beasts had infiltrated the Human Village already. How could she deal with such numbers? A powerful spellcard would drive back some of the dinosaurs, but would probably flatten the entire village in the process.

She was going to have to take drastic action. Turning her attention to the town hall, one of the few buildings that was still standing, Keine began to concentrate on a particular spell. Slowly, a faint blue light began to emanate from her body.

"All right, everyone, please follow me!" she called out, clapping her hands loudly to gather the villagers' attention. "Everybody into the town hall! Form a nice, orderly queue in front of the doors and don't push. I have created a magical barrier around it to protect you from the dinosaurs." Quickly, she started to usher the frightened people into the building, trying to keep order. "You are not safe in your homes or anywhere else in the village. Please stay inside the town hall until the danger has passed. As long as you do not leave the building, the dinosaurs will not be able to harm you. Food, drink and medicine will be brought to you at set times of the day whilst we investigate the incident. Don't push!"

She stepped aside to let a group of children rush through the open doors: doors which were now glowing under the pressure of her magic. The were-hakutaku pushed the doors shut and completed her spell, sealing the place away completely before the dinosaurs could damage the building.

 _There!_

Satisfied, Keine watched as allosaurs, raptors and all manner of prehistoric beasts rushed through the abandoned remains of the Human Village and laid waste to what was left. None of the dinosaurs were able to see the town hall at all. As far as Keine was concerned, the building had now been erased from history itself and would remain like that for as long as she wished it. She was the guardian of the Human Village, and it was her duty to protect its residents from harm.

 _Dinosaurs,_ the were-hakutaku thought to herself, watching a passing pterodactyl with a mixture of confusion and scepticism. _No. Not dinosaurs. I know enough of the history of the world to know that there should be no dinosaurs around anymore. I can't possibly_ call _these dinosaurs when they shouldn't even exist. Except that I can see a utahraptor right there with my own eyes, and a stegosaurus eating the crops, and a triceratops…and…No! Stop ruining the history books!_

At least the villagers were all safe for now. The last of them had made it into the town hall just before her spell had finished. Now all she had to do was -

"Hyaaa!"

The high-pitched cry came from behind her. Startled, Keine turned around to see a large group of hostile pterodactyls heading in her direction. Why were they attacking her for? From her knowledge, pterodactyls fed on mainly fish and small animals. Did they think she was a _fish?_

Determinedly, the were-hakutaku flew upwards and steeled herself to fire an attack spell. As the bird-like creatures drew closer and closer, she realised that they were not alone. There was someone with them. Somebody was flying alongside the pterodactlys…and they were _not_ a dinosaur.

"Hyaaa!" Cirno yelled, riding proudly on top of the lead bird with fiery excitement in her blue eyes. "Dinosaur rider Cirno is on your tail! Take this!"

A storm of icicles rained down from above. Keine started to dodge, then watched in amazement as the attack went completely off-target and hit one of the other pterodactyls instead. The bird shrieked and tumbled out of the sky, separating from the group.

"Cirno?" Keine said in confusion. "What exactly are you doing?"

The ice fairy punched the air triumphantly with such gusto that she almost hit another pterodactyl. Hastily, she lowered her arm again.

"I'm the strongest fairy!" she declared. "And now I'm going to be the strongest fairy on a pterodactyl!"

"Um, I don't think you - "

"I'm going to rule the world with _dinosaurs!_ " She pointed a finger at Keine dramatically. "Starting with you! I'm gonna take you down!"

With that, Cirno charged towards her at full speed, another spell prepared in her hands. Before she could do anything, the pterodactyl she was riding collided with another pterodactyl, causing her to lose control of her mount. The ice fairy spiraled down to earth with a cry and crashed into a shed.

Keine just stood there scratching her head for a moment, uncertain about what to do. Was she all right?

Seconds later, Cirno suddenly re-appeared and flew up into the air on a very battered-looking pterodactyl. She threw another mass of icy projectiles at Keine which, again, missed completely and knocked over an allosaurus. Fuming, the ice fairy yelled at her unintelligibly and then flew off into the distance, surrounded by the rest of her pterodactyl flock. Yes, a flock…that was the only word for it. It almost seemed as if the birds were following her willingly.

Mystified, Keine stared after the disappearing fairy, speechless with astonishment. She didn't understand any of this at all.

"What's going on today?" she said out loud.

A peal of laughter came from the shadows of one of the remaining village huts. Keine turned around, fearing that one of the human children had not made it into the town hall in time. Then she saw the figure of a little girl step into the light, with two hons protruding from her head and a gourd of sake at her side. An oni.

"You want to know what's going on?" Suika Ibuki said, a wry smile on her face. Something about her tone of voice suggested that she had been drinking recently. "Dinosaurs are ancient history, Keine…aren't _you_ supposed to be the history buff here?"

She giggled and took another swig of sake, barely reacting as a raptor approached her and raised its deadly claws to impale her. Without much effort, the oni grabbed the great carnivore by one leg and lifted their entire body over her head. She swung the dinosaur around and round as they roared in pain, then finally hurled the creature into the trees with a great _crash._

"What's so funny?" the were-hakutaku asked her. "Suika, do you know anything about this?"

"Me? How could I?" Suika grinned from ear to ear, her shoulders shaking. "It just makes me laugh. Dinosaurs invading Gensokyo, you know?"

Keine put a hand on her hip and frowned. "What's so amusing about that?"

"Because Reimu's got to deal with it." Suika spun around on the spot, swaying a little. "And you know what she'll do, don't you? Oh, boy. She's _really_ got her work cut out for her thistime…"

* * *

Remilia Scarlet descended the velvet stairs leading into the main hall of the Scarlet Devil Mansion and rubbed her eyes sleepily. The air was thick with silence, a pervasive and dead silence which cut deeply into her thoughts and pushed ever so gently at the edge of her senses. The only footsteps upon the red carpet were her own; the only signs of life exhibited little more than a faint _drip_ from the ceiling. For an instant, she almost felt as if she were back in the tomb.

What a strange day to be roused from her slumber.

There was nobody here. No maids. No Sakuya. No Koakuma or Patchouli: the vampire mistress had paid a visit to the library earlier, only to find the doors magically locked from the inside. She could only assume that Meiling was on guard duty at the front gates. Right now, the only person who she could be completely sure about their whereabouts was her own sister!

Or at least, she _hoped_ Flandre hadn't gone missing as well. That could be bad.

Remilia listened to the silence for long moments, testing the waters for the slightest ripple or echo, but heard only muffled noises from the outside world. Part of her was angry at being woken up early, at such an hour when the sun still blazed its hateful rays of burning light upon her kind. When she found Sakuya, there had better be a good reason for it.

Even so, the vampire mistress felt that there was something different in the air today, something which caught her attention and drove her to distraction. She could sense it as surely as the cold dead flesh which hung off her bones, as simply as the lack of breath from her mouth. Sometimes she went for weeks without breathing at all.

 _A distinctive smell in the air,_ she thought. _So familiar to vampires, as repulsive as it is to a human. Even a youngling who has yet to grow out her fangs could recognise this scent. It smells like the touch of beauty._

Her gaze fell upon the dark red patches staining the rich carpet, almost camouflaged into the material completely.

 _Smells like…blood._

Idly, Remilia wondered who on earth would be careless enough to bleed all over the carpet. It was her carpet, after all. Some things you could never fully wash out.

She listened harder now, concentrating with her natural vampire abilities – Sakuya always kept all the doors muffled during daylight hours so as not to wake her up. This time, the vampire mistress managed to make out something else.

It sounded like an animal's roar.

An attack upon the mansion? Surely not. Who would dare assault the home of the Scarlets? It would explain why everybody was missing, however…

"Sakuya!" she called out from the balcony. "Where are you, Sakuya?"

It was not like the head maid to keep her waiting like this. Five in the morning, four in the afternoon, eleven at night - it didn't matter what time it was, Sakuya would always be there for her. She would make time if she had to. After all, time was one of Sakuya's unique talents.

Muttering to herself, Remilia looked up at the dark clock face above her head. Two o'clock. Next to it was another clock, and another, both of which showed completely different times. One of them had a thirteenth hour installed for some reason. The vampire mistress had never really stopped to look at them, not when Sakuya kept such perfect time for her already. Now she was beginning to wonder at their purpose.

Muttering to herself, she turned her face to the window on her right – and saw Hong Meiling standing at the front gates of the mansion, punching a dinosaur in the face.

Remilia blinked and rubbed her eyes. What a strange vision. Stranger still was the fact that vision had not actually gone away, because Meiling was still hitting the dinosaur like a punching bag. Well, at least she was doing her job.

"Sakuya!" she called out again, her tone hardening with impatience as she flew down to the lower level of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. "I am waiting!"

Almost immediately, there was the sound of rushed footsteps and the double doors were thrown open. The tall figure of the silver-haired maid appeared, her face flushed as if she had just been running, holding a reddened knife in each hand.

Disturbingly, her uniform was stained heavily with blood.

"My apologies, my lady," Sakuya said, bowing her head. She slid her knives back into her belt, her manner as calm and refined as if this were just another ordinary day at the mansion. "I did not mean to wake you up at this hour. It has been a little hectic today with the dinosaurs around, so I'm afraid I am still preparing your evening meal. If you can wait a few minutes, I will be able to serve you breakfast shortly."

The vampire mistress opened her mouth to speak and then stopped. There were several things wrong with what Sakuya had just said, so that she wasn't sure which one to pick first.

That wasn't all, either. As soon as the maid had walked in, the smell of blood had become incredibly overpowering, until Remilia had to forcibly restrain herself from feeding on Sakuya right there and then. No, that would not do. Self-control. There was always enough blood to go around.

" _Evening_ meal, Sakuya?" she asked instead, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, my lady," the head maid said dutifully. "Your evening meal for tomorrow. I am busily rescheduling all of my duties to take place twenty four hours in the future." She smiled warmly. "My ability to stop time has its uses."

Remilia frowned. There was definitely something a little off here.

"Sakuya," she said, "I am glad that you are fully devoted to your duties, but there is no need for you to make extra work for yourself. The other maids are there for a reason."

"No, my lady." Sakuya drew herself up. "I am the only maid here today. All of the others have run away or have been eaten by dinosaurs."

There was a long silence, during which the vampire gave her a long, stern look; the maid returned her gaze in an innocent fashion. Something about the flushness in Sakuya's cheeks and the red of the knives in her hand was making a connection. In the distance, another animal roar could be heard.

"Sakuya, I'm going to ask you a question," Remilia said at last. "In fact, I'm going to ask you several."

"I will answer anything you ask me, my lady."

She walked right up to the maid, feeling a little dizzy from the stench of blood on Sakuya's clothes, and resisted the rising urge to go into a feeding frenzy. Try as she might, her gaze kept drifting back to the maid's throat. If she ordered it, Sakuya would probably let her bite her without a second thought, but that wasn't the point.

"Where is everybody gone?" Remilia asked in a hard tone of voice. "Why was I woken up early? _Why_ can I see Meiling punching a dinosaur outside? Why are you covered in blood?" She wasn't worried that the maid was wounded or hurt, since she could tell that none of that blood was her own. Yes, Remilia already knew what Sakuya's blood smelled like. " _Why are there dinosaurs attacking the mansion?"_

The head maid looked at her with silver eyes and smiled. "Is that all, my lady?"

She glared at her, not in the mood for waiting around. Thirsty. Too thirsty.

"Answer me, Sakuya," she ordered.

"Of course, my lady." The silver-haired maid bowed her head again. "I think…it might be better to show you. Would you like to accompany me outside?"

"Outside?" Remilia repeated in a low growl. "Sakuya, the sunlight at _this_ hour will not – "

She stopped short as Sakuya wordlessly offered her the parasol. The vampire stared at it for a moment, wondering why it was miraculously clean of blood, then grudgingly accepted. After a moment's pause, she followed the maid through the double doors and into the outside world.

The smell of rotting meat hit her first, washing over her in waves. Wincing slightly, Remilia took a moment to catch her breath – not that she actually needed to breathe at all – before stepping outside. Then she stopped in her tracks and simply stared in speechless astonishment at the sight that greeted her.

Over a hundred bodies littered the grounds surrounding the Scarlet Devil Mansion far and wide, great beasts which lay dead and freshly slaughtered. Many of them were stacked upon each other in a gruesome mound, whilst others were still moving and twitching. What had happened here? In less than a day, the area had practically been turned into some kind of killing ground.

At first glance, Remilia thought that these were just wild animals of Gensokyo, though it was unthinkable that so many would attack the mansion at once. When she looked closer, however, she saw the distinctly recognisable shape and size of the corpses, along with a unique body structure and a mass of teeth and claws…The realisation came to her at once. These were no ordinary creatures, nor any that should still walk the earth...

"I don't understand," the vampire mistress said quietly.

Before them, Meiling was locked in combat with two dilophosauruses whilst an allosaurus attacked her from the side. The red-haired gatekeeper was trading punches and kicks with the dinosaurs at high speed and beating them to a pulp, though she had sustained several bruises and minor bleeding across her body. More of the creatures were converging upon the mansion as if they were being drawn to the place.

"The dinosaurs appeared early this morning, my lady," Sakuya explained, as Meiling whirled round and kicked the allosaurus in the stomach with a yell. "There were only a few of them at first. Meiling was able to drive any that came too close to the gates, so they didn't really bother us. But then more of the predators started appearing in packs, and they tried to cross the border and attack the mansion. I've been fighting them off with Meiling for many hours now." She sighed and patted down her reddened uniform worryingly. "Dinosaurs hold more blood than I would have thought."

Grimacing, Remilia turned her face away from the mass of bodies at the gates. It was like looking over a small battlefield. The sight didn't repulse her – quite the opposite, really – but the scent of blood was now maddeningly strong. It would be best for her to stay as far away from the scene as possible.

 _Why are they attacking us for?_

The way Sakuya had described it, the dinosaurs had been attacking the Scarlet Devil Mansion purposefully in large groups. Why? What was so special about this place? Was there something here that the beasts wanted? It sounded ridiculous.

"What about Patchouli?" she asked, keeping her eyes fixed on the hostile dinosaurs in front of the mansion. "Her magic spells can deal with any number of enemies. Where is she?"

The silver-haired maid hesitated. "We don't know."

" _What?"_

"Patchouli did not return to her quarters last night, my lady." Sakuya's tone sounded mildly apologetic. "Her bed was untouched and her room undisturbed. I thought perhaps that she had pulled an all-nighter and stayed inside the library, as she sometimes does, but the doors were magically sealed against entry. I was able to see inside and found that the library was completely empty."

Remilia's face grew tense. "She's disappeared?"

"Yes. I have been doing my best to find her, but so far have been unsuccessful. I am certain that she is the one who sealed the library before she vanished." The maid cleared her throat, her voice calm and gentle. "My lady, please don't worry about this right now. Patchouli would not have left the mansion so suddenly. I am still searching the other rooms so we should be able to find her. The situation is in hand."

The vampire mistress was troubled by this news. Patchouli was not the kind of person known to break her routine. She would often stay in the library for hours at a time, reading and researching extensively, leaving only to eat and sleep when she needed to…Occasionally she would visit Remilia to consult her about something, but that was all. The librarian of the Scarlet Devil Mansion was content to live in such a way as long as the world left her alone.

Still, Remilia was inclined to go along with Sakuya and put aside her concerns. This was probably something very minor, such as Patchouli falling asleep on her desk halfway during an invisibility spell. Perhaps the librarian was still in the mansion and they just hadn't found her yet.

"Very well, Sakuya," Remilia said shortly. "I will leave this to you. Tell me as soon as you discover the whereabouts of our missing librarian. As for the _other_ matters…" She deliberately avoided looking towards the horde of prehistoric beasts nestled outside the gate. "This goes without saying, but we cannot allow these… _dinosaurs_ to infiltrate the mansion. Repel these creatures with all of your skill, Sakuya."

The silver-haired maid nodded. "It will be done, my lady. I will continue to work together with Meiling to remove these invaders." She hesitated for a moment, not wanting to displease her mistress. "If the dinosaurs surround us on all sides, then some of them may get past us and enter the mansion. I will do my best, but there are only two of us to defend the entire grounds…"

"Do not let them in." Remilia's tone brooked no argument. "You are absolved of your other duties for today, Sakuya. Forget about the cleaning or washing. We must defend our borders, and _that_ is what I want you to focus on."

Sakuya's eyes widened. "No cleaning?" she said doubtfully, seeming almost affronted by the notion.

"Is that a problem?"

The maid swallowed. "Forgive me for asking, my lady," she said. "What kind of maid would I be if I did not clean?"

"The kind of maid who knows where her priorities lie," the vampire answered. "You've got your hands full without preparing two days' worth of meals and cleaning eigth different rooms. When I return tonight, I do not want to see this place crawling with dinosaurs! Is that understood?"

"Return?" Sakuya's grey eyes filled with concern. "Lady Remilia, are you going somewhere?"

Her mistress frowned and looked at her haughtily.

"No, Sakuya," she said heavily. "I am going back to sleep. What kind of hour do you call this? If you recall, I was woken up during daylight hours."

The head maid breathed a sigh of relief, the tension draining out of her face in an instant. "Of course, my lady," she said. "I'm sorry, I must have misheard you."

Turning away from her, Remilia marched back inside the Scarlet Devil Mansion, anxious to put some distance between herself and the growing horde of dinosaurs outside. The presence of the sun would start to affect her negatively if she spent too much time out here. When she spoke again, her voice was filled with authority.

"I want everything to be back to normal when I wake up, Sakuya," she snapped. "Everything. I want our librarian found, I want these dinosaurs off my property _right now_ , and I want you to get a change of clothes before the smell of blood drives me completely crazy. Is that clear?"

"I will do my best, my lady," the silver-haired maid said with a sigh, not mentioning that it was probably impossible.

"Crystal clear?"

"Yes, Lady Remilia, as clear as crystal."

The vampire mistress stopped in the middle of the hall. "Clear as blood?"

"That's a trick question, my lady. Blood obscures purpose."

Remilia smiled to herself, then rose up in the air as she flew towards her quarters. That would do, for now. If she could hire a thousand maids from all across the land, there would never be another that could match Sakuya Izayoi.

"Sakuya?" she called out behind her. "Just one more thing." The vampire cupped one hand against her cheek, inhaling the remnants of the old scent clinging to her skin. " _Don't_ wake my sister up, please. She needs her beauty sleep."

* * *

Reimu made her way through the Forest of Magic as quickly as she could, flying low across the ground as she weaved in and out through the trees. Ankylosauruses and brontosauruses fed on the leaves and vegetation around her, and flocks of prehistoric birds nestled within the high-reaching branches. The dinosaurs were roaming the woods as if they had always been there. No allosauruses or other carnivores in this part of the forest, thankfully, but the shrine maiden didn't feel like pushing her luck. Sooner or later, she was going to run into trouble.

She felt the comforting presence of her spellcards tucked within her clothing, diligently collected from the Hakurei Shrine. The next time a dinosaur tried to bite her head off, she would be prepared. Would it be enough? The shrine maiden hoped so; taking down a large dinosaur was a little different from standard youkai extermination, so she would have to use her spellcards sparingly.

Mindful of this, she circled around the next fork of the forest path and headed deeper into the Forest of Magic. Reimu flew down to the end of the trail, over a stegosaurus' plated back, only to find four more paths leading in different directions. Annoyed, she took the first path and ended up at a very familiar clearing from ten minutes ago. She was going round in circles.

 _Marisa!_

How could she be lost? She was _sure_ this was the right way to the Kirisame Magic Shop, but the further she ventured into these woods, the more confusing the paths became. It was like a maze. She had passed the same diplodocus six times now and was getting a bit sick of seeing it. On a good day, Reimu was able to find the way to Marisa's shop by accident, but today was not a good day and the dinosaurs were not helping.

 _Where_ is _this shop? Alice always finds her way there perfectly, but she's the only one who can ever find it. How does Marisa manage to get any customers if nobody knows where her shop is?_

Part of her suspected that Marisa used magic to move the shop to another obscure part of the forest. To be honest, she didn't think Marisa actually knew how to do that, but it would offer _some_ kind of explanation at least. She had been flying around for nearly twenty minutes now just trying to work out where to go.

What if this was deliberate? What if a sinister individual was misguiding her with illusions to keep her going in circles forever? What if someone didn't want her to find where Marisa was –

The shrine maiden reached the next corner and saw the Kirisame Magic Shop right in front of her, moderately concealed by the overgrown plants in the area. Oh, never mind. It was just really hard to find.

"Marisa!" Reimu called out. She stepped up to the wooden door with gohei in hand. "We have to talk!"

There was no answer or movement from within the shop. No sound at all.

Briefly, the shrine maiden entertained the possibility that the magician might not be home. After all that trouble, what if Marisa had just gone out somewhere and…No. That would be _very_ infuriating.

She knocked on the door loudly. Still no answer.

Reimu was about to try something else when she caught sight of the small sign hanging there, just above the handle. Scrawled there in barely illegible, very Marisa-like handwriting, were the words: DO NOT KNOCK.

The shrine maiden stared at the sign for a few seconds, puzzled. Do not knock? What else was she supposed to do aside from knock? There was no doorbell to ring, no letterbox to use – she would be amazed if Marisa _ever_ received letters by post when nobody could find this place. What kind of sign was this?

 _Do I knock on the window instead? But it still says "do not knock". So that means I can't knock on the door_ or _the window?_ She felt herself seething at how illogical this all was. _Why? WHY am I not allowed to knock? Will the door fall down if people knock on it too much? Is there supposed to be a bell?_

She was about to kick the door when her gaze fell upon a small metal object lying on the floor. It was a bell.

 _Oh._

Grudgingly, Reimu crouched down to pick up the ridiculously tiny bell. She saw, too, that this bell was next to a different sign.

This sign read: DO NOT RING.

She blinked and looked at each of the two signs very carefully. They were both clearly written by Marisa. The shrine maiden read them and then re-read them in the hope of finding some kind of sense in their words, but in vain. This made less sense than the dinosaurs did, and that was saying something.

 _Why can't I ring the bell either? Marisa, what is your problem?! If you don't want anyone to ring the bell, then don't put a bell on the ground! It's so small that I nearly stepped on it! How is anyone supposed to get through the front door if they can't knock or the door or ring the bell?_

With rapidly declining enthusiasm and a small measure of spite, Reimu held up the bell and rang it as loud as she could. It was a strange sensation, really. She felt as if she was part of a full classical orchestra, except that everyone was doing nothing whilst she played the triangle.

 _Ting._

She waited patiently for something to happen. Surely something was going to happen. She hadn't come all this way getting lost and becoming increasingly more irritated at dinosaurs only to ring this tiny bell and see it do absolutely nothing.

Nothing did happen. She furiously threw the bell at a bird nearby and knocked it out of its tree with a squawk. This was just a waste of time. Giving up, Reimu turned around and prepared to make the long journey back –

There was an almighty _crash_ as a diplodocus's heavy foot slammed down onto the roof of the Kirisame Magic Shop and smashing through it all the way to the floor.

Reimu spun around, her face pale as the entire shop was rapidly crushed into a grand pile of wooden splinters. The giant foot came down again and again as the dinosaur paced. Glass beakers were smashed, potion ingredients were ground into dust, and magic scrolls were ripped. Within seconds, the whole building had been reduced to rubble.

"Oh no," she whispered.

Had Marisa been inside? What if she had been sleeping and didn't know about the dinosaurs? With her heart in her mouth, the shrine maiden ran towards the sad remains of the Kirisame Magic Shop.

"MARISA!"

Tearfully, she started to dig through the rubble, not knowing where to start. Great, wooden beams, too heavy and dangerous to lift without using magic, but doing so might make it worse –

Reimu stopped in her tracks. She could hear voices from somewhere above her, human voices which sounded very familiar. Even from down here, she knew who they belonged to.

Slowly, the shrine maiden got to her feet and wiped the dust off her clothes.

She stared at the grazing diplodocus which had just flattened Marisa's shop. Her gaze travelled up the massive dinosaur, up and up, to where its head disappeared through the trees. The voices were coming from that direction.

Suspiciously, Reimu flew upwards as the voices grew louder.

She saw somebody riding on the dinosaur's back. A teenage girl with blonde hair flowing down her back and a broomstick held in her hands. The girl had a black hat with a white bow set on her head, which mischievous golden eyes that looked back at the world.

"Hey, Reimu," Marisa said with a smirk, looking down at her from atop the diplodocus. "What's up?"

The shrine maiden looked at her blankly, then back at the remains of the Kirisame Magic Shop far below, then back to her again.

"What are you doing, Marisa?" she asked tensely.

Marisa shrugged casually. "What's it look like? I'm riding a dinosaur." She grinned. "A dinosaur, Reimu! It's big, it's green, and it'll kick you all the way to the moon if you mess with me. In the flesh." She folded her arms smugly. "What? You got a problem with that? Don't go tryin' to steal my dinosaur, Reimu, 'cause this one's mine. Get your own! "

"I don't _want_ it, Marisa," Reimu said patiently. "I didn't fly up here to claim ownership over your diplodocus. By the way, it's a herbivore. It's not going to be kicking anyone to the moon." She pointed down towards the forest floor. "And it just destroyed your shop!"

The magician's face froze. " _What?_ " She looked down through the trees and saw the tell-tale signs of the broken rubble, her expression despondent. "Oh, man. I knew the dinosaur stepped on something hard back there. Thought it was just a big rock." She sighed. "Ah,well. No real loss."

"I'm sorry – _what?_ " Reimu wasn't sure she'd heard right. "That's your shop and your home down there, Marisa! How is that no real loss?"

Marisa shrugged, not seeming too worried. "I'll get the insurance back in a few months and they'll find me a new place eventually. Besides, it's not like I ever used it for living in."

The shrine maiden frowned. "You don't live in your own house?"

"Well, technically I _do,_ but I spend more time hangin' out at Alice's place." Marisa smiled to herself. "Guess I'll just have to move in with her for a while. It was gonna happen anyway."

Reimu didn't allow herself to dwell on what that might mean. It _did_ explain why her best friend kept turning up uninvited at the Hakurei Shrine and staying overnight so frequently. Wasn't the point of having a house for you to actually live there?

"I thought you were still inside the shop when it collapsed, Marisa," she said. "I was really worried about you! But I'm glad you're all right." The shrine maiden flew closer to her. "I'm just curious about something. Why did you put up a sign on there that said "Do Not Knock"?"

The magician looked at her incredulously. "What're you on about? It said what it said. You're not supposed to knock."

"I know that, but _why?"_

"Because if you don't knock," Marisa explained, "I'm not gonna answer the door. And I'm not gonna answer anyway 'cause I don't live there. Reverse psychology. It hardly matters now, does it?"

The shrine maiden shook her head in disbelief. It wasn't that important anyway. She had almost forgotten the real reason she had sought out her friend in the first place.

"Never mind," she said. "Marisa, I need you to come back to the Hakurei Shrine with me. We need to find out where these dinosaurs came from and put a stop to it at once. Now get off that diplodocus and let's get going."

Marisa gave her a hesitant look. "You want _me_ to help you with this?" she asked warily. "Like…all of it? From start to finish?"

"Of course! We'll do it together!"

The blonde girl shook her head slowly. "Sorry, Reimu," she said. "I'm not getting involved in this one. Dinosaurs coming back sounds like history and time's all gone wrong. It's gonna get messy, _really_ messy, and I don't wanna be there when it all blows up in your face." She turned away from her friend. "You're the one who deals with incidents. You can fix this. I've got all these dinosaurs to mess around with."

Reimu glared at her. "You can't just ignore this, Marisa! This is affecting all of Gensokyo!"

"Who said I'm ignoring it? I'm acknowledging it in every way, I'm just opting to do nothing." She gestured over her shoulder. "Besides, I'm busy having a dinosaur race with Sanae."

"A _what?"_

The shrine maiden's eyes widened as a _second_ diplodocus loomed out from the forest, contentedly chewing on the leaves on the higher branches. Riding on its back was a young girl with long green hair, dressed in a blue and white dress. She held a gohei similar to Reimu's and her face was lit up with an expression of pure jubilation.

 _It's Sanae,_ Reimu thought, a wave of relief washing over her. _Finally! Someone sensible enough to take the dinosaur threat seriously. Marisa might be unhelpful and reluctant to act, but I know Sanae has a strong sense of duty and –_

"Hooray!" the wind priestess cheered, waving her weapon in the air. "Let the official dinosaur races begin! It's diplodocus vs diplodocus, one on one, until more diplodocuses arrive and bring their contestants. The start line is _here_ , the finish line is at the ocean – which ocean, do you ask? _Any_ ocean! So place your bets on which horse is – I mean, which _dinosaur_ – is going to be the winner!" She turned and saw the dark-haired shrine maiden staring at her in outrage. "Oh, hi Reimu! Have you got a diplodocus too? Come and join the race!"

Bleakly, Reimu glanced at Marisa for some possible explanation. The magician shrugged, having nothing to offer.

"I don't _believe_ this!" the shrine maiden cried. "Sanae, what are you doing? Dinosaur races? Seriously?" She threw her arms up hopelessly. "I expected this much from Marisa, but not from you!"

Sanae clasped her hands together. "Reimu, please understand. It's dinosaurs! Dinooooosaurs! I have to do this! I've always wanted to go on dinosaur races!"

Reimu slammed her weapon down on the diplodocus' back. How could this be happening? Wasn't there _anyone_ reliable in Gensokyo who could see that something had to be done? Where was Yukari when you needed her?

"Look!" she said angrily. "There are dinosaurs roaming Gensokyo, destroying houses and eating people. There's chaos and pandemonium everywhere. And what are _you_ two doing? Having a dinosaur race!" She eyed the diplodocuses suspiciously. "How is this even a race, anyway? Do you know how slowly these creatures move? You'll reach the Human Village by next week!"

"Well, it's more of an endurance test," Sanae said cheerfully. "Long-distance running!"

"Plodding," Marisa added helpfully.

"Absolutely. Long-distance plodding. It goes like this: plod, plod, plod-plod-plod, plod, plod, plod-plod-plod – "

"Yes, I get it!" Reimu snapped. "Now just listen. What are you going to do when the dinosaurs keep attacking people, eating up all the food, and disrupting your lifestyle? Where will you live? Where are you going to go shopping? My shrine was swamped with them this morning!" She gave them a stern look, seeing that the other two girls had finaly gone silent and were paying attention to her words. "We can't just keep beating up dinosaurs forever. We have to find the source and put everything back to normal. And I hate to say this, but I can't do this alone. There are just too many of them. I need you to _help_ me."

Marisa and Sanae shared a reluctant, uneasy look with each other. Then they looked away into the distance where the sounds of animals stampedes and roaring could be heard. Reimu was right: there was no running away from this problem.

"What do you want to do?" the shrine maiden said quietly. "Are you going to spend the next month stuck in the longest diplodocus race ever? Or are you going to get up and help me to get to the bottom of this and save Gensokyo?"

Sanae punched the air. "DINOSAUR RACES!" she yelled. Then she faltered, seeing the look on Reimu's face. "Oh, um…I mean…maybe."

Marisa rolled her eyes. "What're we supposed to do, Reimu? You can't solve a problem like this." She glanced down at her ruined shop on the ground and then seemed to give in. "Whatever. My home's been demolished anyway. Guess I might as well help you for now and see if we get anywhere. But don't expect any miracles from me, you got that?"

Reimu breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Marisa," she said. "And…Sanae?"

The wind priestess avoided her gaze.

"I shouldn't be helping you, Reimu," she said briskly. "If I obstruct you, your shrine will suffer. That will mean I can collect more faith for Lady Kanako and Lady Suwako!" Her eyes lit up. "Yes! That makes much more sense, don't you think? In fact, the best way I can do that is by fighting you!"

"No, Sanae, I don't think this is what I – "

"That means DINOSAUR COMBAT!" Sanae punched the air with both hands and almost dropped her gohei. "Diplodocus vs diplodocus! First one to eat all the leaves is the winner!"

Reimu hit herself in the forehead with her hand. At times like this, she really questioned her choice of company.

"Sanae," she said clearly, "obstructing me will not get you more faith. It will mean that the dinosaurs will just eat more of your worshippers." She paused as understanding dawned on the wind priestess' face. "I know you have the power to create miracles. And right now, I'd like you to create the miracle of actually listening to me! Are you with me or not?"

Reluctantly, the green-haired girl nodded. "I guess I've got nothing better to do until Saturday..." She looked up at Reimu, puzzled. "But where do we start?"

The shrine maiden floated in the air between the two dinosaurs, addressing both of them. "Firstly," she said, "I think we should go to the Hakurei Shrine and discuss this in more detail. We need to look at our options, possible causes and summon magic which might be responsible."

"I'm not responsible," Marisa said at once.

"I didn't say you were, Marisa."

"Excuse me," Sanae interrupted, still looking baffled. "Why do we have to go to your shrine? And why do we have to fly there?"

Reimu gritted her teeth, aware that nobody had actually moved. This was really getting on her nerves.

"Well, how _else_ are you going to get there?" she said irritably. "Ride your dinosaurs there at a deathly slow pace, plod-plodding all the way to the Harukei Shrine?"

She realised the words were a mistake the instant they left her mouth. Sanae's face glowed with happiness.

"Oh no," the shrine maiden said.

"Oh _yes_ ," Sanae said excitedly. "Dinosaur ride to the Hakurei Shrine."

"We can't do that, Sanae! It will take us _hours!_ "

The wind priestess folded her arms stubbornly. "I'm not budging on this, Reimu! Take it or leave it. Dinosaur is our mode of transport, and dinosaur it shall be!"

The shrine maiden flung another helpless glance towards Marisa. The blonde magician was smirking again. Well, it wasn't as if she expected any help in that department anyway.

"We are not riding the dinosaur," Reimu stated.

"Yes we are," Sanae said. "It's dinosaur or nothing."

"If you have to ride a dinosaur, at least choose a _faster_ one!"

"No! This is my dino." The wind priestess patted her diplodocus affectionately. "I shall call him Squishy, and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Squi – "

"There is nothing squishy about him!" Reimu swung her gohei through the air, starting to lose her temper. "You know what? Keep the dinosaur. We've wasted enough time going on about this, so I'm just going ahead to wait for you two at the shrine." She looked up at the sun shining in the sky above their heads, wondering how long she would have to wait. "And _no races!_ "


	3. Goose Wars

Youmu Konpaku pulled her sword from the body of an iguanadon and wiped the blade clean before continuing her patrol through the ethereal gardens of Hakugyokurou. She maintained a defensive battle stance as she walked, a sword readied in each hand as she prepared to defend the ghost shrine from any threat. An icy wind brushed through her silver hair and froze her to the bone, but the gardener barely felt it; all of her concentration was given over to keeping a watchful eye on the blurry shapes moving through the fog towards her. A single mistake could cost her dearly.

At this distance, the creatures looked like wandering phantoms. Just like her.

With practiced skill, she dashed forward and sliced through the pale shadow of a triceratops which had started eating the flowers at the gate. The animal bellowed and snapped at her with its jaws, but she ran it through from front to back until it keeled over and lay dead at her feet. Seconds later, a wild shriek from above heralded the arrival of a flock of pterodactyls; Youmu whirled around to see the prehistoric birds fly overhead and disappear into the distance. There was no letting your guard down here.

 _I will not let these creatures disturb the atmosphere of Hakugyokurou,_ she vowed. _Lady Yuyuko needs her peace and quiet. Not only that, the dinosaurs are completely ruining the garden!_

She had been running back and forth from one side of the garden to the other for nearly an hour now, just trying to keep the dinosaurs at bay. It was one thing for dinosaurs to walk the lands of Gensokyo, but quite another to see them inside the Netherworld. Some of these flowers had taken years to bloom under her attention and care, only to be trampled by these beasts. Were they even dinosaurs at all?

Abruptly, Youmu felt herself grow tense as she heard the faint sound of crushed leaves upon soil, a noise that soon turned into a loud rustling and made her catch her breath. Quickly, she ran towards the other gate, unable to rest for a moment, and braced herself for combat.

Not just one, but three beasts were moving across the grass towards the ghost shrine, each of them much bigger than she was. The gardener started to intercept their path, but the dinosaurs had already sensed her presence and were watching her hungrily. Dilophosauruses, by the looks of them. The rounded crests on their heads were a big giveaway. She knew little else about such creatures and didn't really care: if it had substance, it could be cut, and if it could be cut, it could be killed.

"Come on," Youmu called out challengingly to the beasts as they paced slowly in front of her, jaws and teeth poised to devour. "Be slain and depart this place in spirit. The things that cannot be cut by my Roukanken, forged by youkai…are next to none!"

The first dilophosaurus let out a high-pitched cry and swung its tail at the metal gate, denting it badly and forcing it open. With a single coil of its powerful muscles, it bounded forward with great speed and lurched towards her.

She slashed through the air with her katana to split its mouth, moments before its companion ran through the opening and dashed its claws upon her. Youmu ducked beneath its attack, then spun round on one foot and kicked the beast in the gut, sending it flying back into what remained of the gates.

The third dinosaur was already on top of her. She turned to engage it, side-stepping the beast's rapid attacks as it snarled and clawed furiously at her face, then used her wazikashi to guard herself from its more frenzied attacks. The dilophosaurus knocked her back and hit her a glancing blow, then whipped its powerful tail round to put her down permanently. The half-ghost managed to block the attack using the flat of her blades, staggering back from the impact.

Unexpectedly, the first creature rose up behind her and let out a malicious cry, warning her a split second before it attacked her, though not long enough for her to get out of the way. She felt a moment's helplessness before the dinosaur's heavy body slammed into hers, and waves of pain washed over her dulled senses...

 _Damn it._

She squeezed her eyes shut as blinding pain shot through her head, rolling across the grass to get as much distance as possible. The dilosophaurus' foot smashed into the earth where she had been lying just seconds before. It reared up angrily upon seeing her still alive and raced forward, its companions not far behind.

Gritting her teeth, the gardener gripped a spellcard in her right hand, prepared in advance for emergencies. She hadn't counted on using these yet, preferring to rely on her physical skills, but now was not a good time for pride.

 _"Hell Flame Sword_ ,"Youmu whispered, activating the spellcard. _"Flashing Slash Formation of Karma Wind!"_

The air around her exploded with danmaku, shredding the dinosaur apart as it was about to tear at her. Ignoring the pain in her body, she darted forward towards her remaining adversaries as they cowered from the spellcard's onslaught, knowing they would be quick to recover. She reached the next dinosaur before it knew she was there, and sank her katana Roukaken deeply into its thick flesh.

Scrambling up onto the second body before they could knock her down again, the half-ghost leaped upwards at the last dilophosaurus and slashed downwards: once, twice, three times. Her final blow scythed her enemy from both sides at once in a killing blow as the dinosaur roared and collapsed in front of her. A violent twitch ran through its body, and then it moved no more.

Wiping the sweat from her brow, Youmu sheathed her weapons at last and dropped to the ground, reeling from the damage she'd taken. There were no other dinosaurs threatening the shrine for now. She had better catch a breather whilst she still could.

 _Dinosaurs can't come into the Netherworld. Not_ living _dinosaurs. They were wiped out millions of years ago…_

As she watched, the bodies of the dinosaurs in front of her began to shimmer and slowly fade away into nothing. Soon, it was if they had never been there at all. Every dinosaur she had killed in the Netherworld had disappeared in exactly the same way, including the triceratops from before.

It was almost as if these creatures were ghosts. After all, that's what the Netherworld was filled with: the ghosts and spirits of those who had already passed on.

 _The spirit of a dinosaur._

It still didn't make sense. Ghosts didn't usually keep their physical form from their past life. It took a special case for the likeness to be maintained, such as Yuyuko or the Prismriver Sisters, where the person was either unwilling to pass on or unable to do so. Why, then, was every single dinosaur like this? What manner of force had kept them in this form?

Youmu gazed out into the distance, where the bright light of the Saigyou Ayakashi could be seen. The ancient tree had not been damaged from the attacks. For some reason, the half-phantom had felt worried that the dinosaurs might have targeted it. It was a small thing, but she was probably worrying over nothing.

"Youmu!"

The gardener straightened up as Yuyuko Saigouji emerged from the ghost shrine, a calm smile on her face as she sipped her tea. Pink wavy hair ran down the back of her neck, her pale skin beautiful in the light of the Netherworld. She wore a blue and white kimono which only added to the serene atmosphere that surrounded her. In contrast to her servant, there seemed to be no worry or apprehension in her face at all.

"Youmu, do you want to join me for tea?" she said pleasantly, apparently unfazed by all the dinosaurs which had been attacking the gardens. "I tried to find you earlier, but you had mysteriously disappeared. For a moment there, I thought you had become a spook."

"Lady Yuyuko – "

The ghost princess gasped and put a hand to her mouth. "Oh, my. I think we're out of plum cakes! Youmu, do you think you could pop down and get some more?" She waved a small slip of paper in her free hand. "Look, I made a shopping list! I removed ectoplasm from the list this time. I know it caused a lot of grief at the store last time…"

"Lady Yuyuko," Youmu said wearily. "Are you aware that Hakugyokurou has been invaded by dinosaurs?"

Yuyuko held up a finger and shook her head. "No, no, Youmu. You know that's not true."

"But Lady Yuyuko – "

"No buts!" The ghost princess held the teacup up in front of her face. "Shopping, Youmu. Plum cakes! There are no dinosaurs. Sometimes you simply have to think of the important things in life." Her face faltered. "Well, not _life,_ but…you know what I mean."

"Lady Yuyuko," Youmu said with a huff, starting to get annoyed. "How is shopping more important? I have been fighting hordes of dinosaurs for the past hour!"

"No, no, Youmu." The princess waved her hand at the gardens around them. "Not dinosaurs. What's the word again?"

The gardener looked at her, baffled. What else were you supposed to call a dinosaur?

"Um," she faltered, "a prehistoric creature which came from – "

Yuyuko shook her head. "No, no! Think about it. What do we have in the Netherworld?"

"Ghosts?" the half-phantom said weakly.

There was an instant thumbs-up from her mistress, accompanied by another sip of the tea.

"Dinosaur ghosts," Youmu said, not sure where she was going with this.

"Exactly!" the ghost princess said, beaming at her. "Dinosaur ghosts. It's important to get it right. Now come inside and drink tea with me. It's time to go shopping!"

Youmu sighed. "Lady Yuyuko, are you asking me to drink tea or go shopping? Which is it?"

"Well, maybe you can do both. Multi-tasking is a unique skill, Youmu. It's one of those things you can do whether you're living or not. Even a fish can multitask." She held up a second finger thoughtfully. "For example, imagine if you were a fish and you had lost your son – "

"How am I supposed to do both?" The gardener was getting flustered, not knowing what was expected her. "I don't think the shopping is important right now, Lady Yuyuko. I should stay here and keep the gardens of Hakugyokurou safe from dinosaurs! Please leave it to me!"

Yuyuko looked disappointed. "But I have no plum cakes."

"Lady Yuyuko, I will _make_ you a plum cake if you will allow me to stop these dinosaurs from destroying the shrine first." Youmu frowned. "Why do we need plum cakes anyway?"

The ghost princess smiled. "I'm expecting a guest to join us for tea later on. It's always nice to welcome your friends with open arms, but better still when those arms are filled with plum cakes!" She turned to head back into the shrine. "Come on, Youmu! Your tea is waiting. And don't forget to go shopping for those delicious plum cakes!"

Reluctantly, Youmu gave in. If Yuyuko wanted her to go shopping, she would likely have to go – and quickly, before more dinosaurs snuck into the garden and started ruining everything in sight. She had spent _years_ trimming the hedges and removing the weeds and making the place look presentable…years for a half-phantom, certainly.

"Lady Yuyuko," she called out hopefully. "Will you please keep a lookout for dinosaurs whilst I'm out shopping?"

"Youmu, must I tell you this again?" Her mistress spun around in the doorway with a serious expression on her face. "There are no dinosaurs! There are only – "

" _Dinosaur ghosts,_ " the gardener said resignedly. "Can you please look out for them whilst I'm gone?"

Yuyuko lifted her teacup in response. "Of course. I might look out the window every now and then..."

"Please, Lady Yuyuko. I would like the garden to be still standing when I get back. I will bring you back a sackful of plum cakes."

She beamed. "That's wonderful! I will check for dinosaur ghosts, Youmu. And if I see any, they can join us for tea as well…"

"Please don't invite the dinosaurs inside!" the gardener said in a panic. "They are not the kind of guests you want to be friends with!"

Yuyuko waved her away with a hand. "Oh, Youmu, don't be silly. Any ghost is a friend of mine, even the ghost of a dinosaur! Wouldn't you agree?" She smiled her at her innocently. "Now, come inside and help me with the tea. This tea tastes _very_ strong indeed, and I'm not sure why…"

With one last worried look at the gardens, Youmu hurried indoors after her. Shopping, plum cakes, a guest arriving for tea…oh, why did the dinosaurs have to appear today? She didn't have a problem with the dinosaurs themselves as long as they stayed well away from the gardens. Especially the stegosauruses, because they kept eating the flowers.

 _I need to make sure the dinosaurs can't get in whilst I'm away from Hakugyokurou,_ she thought. _There has to be something I can do. Wait…I know! Spellcards. Yes, that should do the trick…_

* * *

Reimu made the journey back to the Hakurei shrine by herself, feeling very disgruntled and irritated at how everything had gone so far. She had travelled all the way here hoping to find people willing to stand by her side, reliable allies who would work together with her to help solve the mystery of the dinosaurs and restore Gensokyo's way of life to normal. Instead, she had discovered that most of her friends just wanted to ignore the problem, play around all day or do nothing at all. Nobody was taking this seriously enough.

Somehow, she had managed to convince Marisa and Sanae to join her, but it hadn't been easy and would be many days before the two girls finished their lengthy dinosaur race. That was assuming they even turned up at all. Maybe she should have challenged them to a danmaku fight instead? Her spellcards were rather limited at the moment, but at least that would have led to a more definite conclusion.

 _This is why I prefer solving incidents by myself._

The shrine maiden passed another diplodocus on her way through the Forest of Magic and deliberately averted her eyes from the creature. She didn't want to look at any diplodocuses right now. The sight was just making her angry.

What was she supposed to do now? Sit in the Hakurei shrine all week and wait for her friends to finish the slowest race of the millennium? Reimu didn't think she could afford to wait that long. Despite being among them for only a few hours, she could already tell that the dinosaurs' numbers were increasing at an alarming pace. If she didn't know better, she would have said that it almost seemed unnatural...

Could she ask someone else for help in the meantime? The other residents of Gensokyo must be having just as much trouble with the dinosaurs as she was. Sakuya and Youmu were devoted to their work and would surely help her out – if their mistresses gave them leave to do so, of course. She would probably end up fighting Yuyuko again just to get a straight answer out of her, but it was better than nothing.

 _That's a good place to start,_ she thought. _Now who else can I ask? Is there anyone else in Gensokyo who could help out at all? Someone who is reliable, dependable and_ isn't _overenthusiastic about dinosaurs?_

Try as she might, Reimu couldn't think of many people which fit that criteria. She wasn't used to asking youkai seriously for help, not when her job consisted mainly of exterminating them. Her mind kept coming back to Yukari. The youkai of boundaries had some questionable motives of her own, but there was no disputing that she cared dearly about Gensokyo. A real threat to this land would undoubtedly catch Yukari's attention and urge her into action; she would not sit idly by whilst Gensokyo was in danger.

Unfortunately, it was also very difficult to find her if she didn't want to be found. Yukari could cross entire worlds if she wanted to. She could be _anywhere_ right now _._ Bleakly, Reimu hoped with all her heart that Yukari had not picked the worst possible time to go on holiday.

 _I don't want to rely on Yukari too much,_ she thought. _It might not be the right thing to do. She's one of the most well-informed youkai in Gensokyo, yet she did nothing to stop countless dinosaurs passing through the Great Hakurei Barrier? What if…what if Yukari actually had something to do with this?_

No, that couldn't be right. Yukari wouldn't have let the dinosaurs in, just like that. There had to be another reason…

Reimu moved closer to the ground and felt her feet touch down onto soft grass as the Hakurei shrine came into view. To her relief, the place wasn't filled with hordes of dinosaurs as she had feared. A couple of styracosauruses were grazing near the main path, but they weren't disturbing the shrine and she decided to let them be. It was more important that the shrine was still standing.

As she reached the door, the shrine maiden realised with a start that something was missing.

It was the donation box. Someone – or something – had stolen the donation box of the Hakurei shrine in the short time she had been away.

For several seconds, she simply stared at the empty space where the donation box had once stood. It wasn't as if there had been much money to begin with, but that wasn't the point. Her hand tightened around her gohei as she took a deep, steadying breath to quell her rising anger. This was _really_ taking the cake.

Reimu didn't like to think of herself as an aggressive person. She didn't try to live her life full of sin and vice, unlike some youkai which came to mind. She didn't exploit others or make a living out of their misery. That was not the duty of a shrine maiden. No, she worked hard, honoured the gods of Gensokyo, solved incidents, exterminated youkai, trained her skills and made a dignified attempt to stop Marisa from stealing every spellbook in existence. So why was this happening to her?

 _The dinosaurs have stolen my donation box!_

Fuming, she stamped her foot and cast around for something to vent her frustration upon. There was nobody around except for the two dinosaurs chewing the plants at the bottom of the path. She didn't want to attack them in case it drew attention.

With a cry of exasperation, Reimu grabbed at the closest object she could find. It was small, it fit in her hand, and it felt a bit squishy.

She opened her hand and saw that she picked up a frog. A rather cute one, in fact. It looked up at her and croaked.

With a yell, the shrine maiden threw the tiny frog as hard as she could in the opposite direction. It whizzed through the air and landed right on top of the grazing styracosauruses. The frog gave a cheerful ribbit and then hopped off the dinosaur, landing in a patch of nearby grass.

Infuriated, Reimu marched right up to the entrance of the Hakurei shrine. She was going to find out exactly who had stolen the donation box. And when she found out who -

"Aaah!"

Her foot suddenly hit something hard, sending her flying forward with a painful jolt. The shrine maiden had a momentary vision of the ground meeting her nose before she landed on the next wooden step with a _smack_. This was not her day.

Crossly, she rubbed her head and sprang to her feet angrily to find out what had just tripped her up. It was a stash of money, lying right there in plain sight.

In fact, it seemed to be the contents of the missing donation box.

Reimu scratched her head with an extremely puzzled expression on her face. Apparently, somebody had emptied the entire donation box, stolen the box, and left the money behind. Why? This was pointless. It was reverse thievery. She didn't think any dinosaur would be capable of this. She knew Marisa certainly wasn't.

 _I'm not even going to try and work out what happened here,_ she thought. _I need to get myself a drink. That's right. I just need some tea._

With a shake of her head, she turned back to go into the shrine.

A camera went off in her face.

"Say _cheese!"_

"Aaaaagh!" she yelled as her vision was obscured by the blinding flash. "I can't see!"

She flailed around with her gohei randomly and succeeded in hitting Aya Shameimaru in the face. The tengu reporter cried out in pain, clutching her nose and losing her grip on the thick pile of newspapers carried in her hands; papers were scattered all over the ground in every direction, flying down the forest path and onto the styracosauruses grazing there. The dinosaurs sniffed the papers and started chewing on them contentedly.

The wind picked up just then and chose to blow the remaining copies into Reimu's face. With a muffled shriek, the shrine maiden felt herself buffeted unceremoniously by newspapers and ran blindly into Aya, sending the tengu hurtling to the ground. She tried to walk forward and accidentally stepped on her, then tripped over the reporter and narrowly missed colliding with a large tree.

"Ayayaya!" the dark-haired tengu cried, struggling to get to her feet. "Reimu! It's only me!"

The shrine maiden pulled three newspapers off her face and rubbed her eyes tenderly. "Aya?" she said in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"My usual delivery, of course!" With lightning speed, the tengu zipped across the grass from each newspaper to the next, collecting all of them neatly into her hands. "What a day it's been. I've never had a news story this good before!" She attempted to pull the last few from the mouths of the styracosauruses. "Stop that," she said sharply to the dinosaurs. "Stop eating my news. It's not food! Give it back! Good boy."

With a professional flourish, Aya straightened all of the papers neatly and flew back to the shrine in a flash, wings beating softly. She whisked out the top issue and held it out to the shrine maiden proudly. "Here's your copy, Reimu," she said. "You don't want to miss out."

Reimu looked at her warily, unsure whether she really wanted to accept the paper. The dark-haired reporter was easily recognisable across Gensokyo, but Aya was far from being an ordinary delivery girl. Her skill with using a camera, interrogation techniques, and catching her subjects off guard at interviews was almost unmatched in her profession. If she wanted a story out of you, she would probably get it.

The shrine maiden remembered her last interview with Aya. It had lasted three hours and had been especially grueling and painful. She did not want to go through an experience like that again.

Throwing caution to the winds – no pun intended – Reimu took the newspaper offered to her and glanced at the front cover. It was certainly eye-catching, to say the least. Bold headlines, articles about the latest dinosaurs sighted in Gensokyo, a reader's column filled with panic and hysteria…yes, it was everything she had expected from the media.

"Where did you get a full-scale picture of a T-rex like that?" she asked curiously. The quality was quite impressive.

"I can't tell you that, Reimu," Aya said mysteriously. "Company secret."

" _Dinosaurs Take Over Gensokyo,"_ the shrine maiden read out loud. Against her better judgement, she flipped over to the next page. _"Brontosaurus Steps On House._ Oh, I know that one. I was there." She leafed through a few more pages, looking for more variety. _"Scarlet Devil Mansion Under Siege by Infinite Dinosaur Army... Fairies Afflicted By Dinosaur Disease... Bamboo Forest Named Danger Zone, Tyrannosaurus Rex Sighted…"_ She turned to the back page and her face fell. "Oh no."

"We always reserve the last page for sports," the tengu explained. "Today is no exception."

Reimu stared at the multiple pictures of diplodocuses which filled the back page of the newspaper. This had gone too far already.

 _Diplodocus Races, All Over Gensokyo! Starting Now!_

Grimly, the shrine maiden browsed through the other columns of the paper in greater detail, searching for any information here that could help her. Every article was focused on the dinosaurs invading the region and making their new homes all over Gensokyo. If anything, this served as confirmation that this incident really was happening everywhere. The crisis was as big as it was going to get.

She handed the paper back to Aya, knowing that it was time to act. There was work to do, and almost nobody was helping her do it. She couldn't afford to waste any more time here.

Unfortunately, the reporter was making no effort to take the paper from her. That in itself was a bad sign.

"You know what the top story is right now?" Aya said with a smile. "It's _you_ , Reimu. People want to know how our favourite shrine maiden is going to deal with this crisis. And really, who better to ask than you?"

Reimu groaned. She could see where this was going.

"Listen, Aya," she said. "I'm not doing an interview with you."

The reporter blinked innocently. "Interview?" she asked.

"No interviews," the shrine maiden repeated. "I'm really not in the mood today, okay? Not now, not later, not _ever._ That's that. I don't want an interview and there is nothing you can do to make me, nothing whatsoever – "

There was a flash of white and a small notepad appeared in the tengu's hand, followed by a keen stylish pencil. The camera flashed again, causing the shrine maiden to flinch back from the glare. This was definitely not fair.

"I'm live at the scene with Reimu Hakurei," Aya exclaimed, "where thousands of people are eagerly waiting to see how she's going to get rid of the dinosaurs! Right now, we will be starting the beginning of this exclusive, once in a lifetime, up close and personal interview with the shrine maiden on what she's going to do to resolve this incident." The tengu looked at her expectantly. "How do you feel, Reimu? Confident? Prepared? Ready to put your plan into action – you do have a plan, don't you? Of course you do." She cocked her head to one side slyly. "Or maybe you're feeling a little overwhelmed? Tell the people of Gensokyo about your next move. We're all listening!"

Reimu glared at her. She resisted the strong urge to put her purification rod right through the camera.

"I'm working on it," she said, voice tight with annoyance. "Aya, are you listening to me? I just said that I'm _not_ doing an interview right now – "

The reporter wrote that down. "That's wonderful," she said brightly. "All of our viewers at home are overjoyed to hear that you, and you alone, have complete confidence in your ability to stop the thousands of prehistoric creatures on the rise." She paused at her notepad for a second. "Whilst you're at it, there are food shortages, houses which need to be rebuilt, an awful lot of noise, and constant earthquakes. Oh, and let's not forget the death count! We can count on you, Reimu, can't we?"

Reimu shut her eyes, wondering if doing so would in any way diminish her current responsibilities. It didn't, so she opened her eyes again.

"I'm a bit busy right now," she said stressfully.

She didn't really think there were thousands watching her, but Aya would write down every single word in her paper and a lot of people were going to read what she said. That by itself was enough to make her feel nervous. Maybe she could answer a _few_ questions if doing so would persuade the tenacious reporter leave her alone…

"I just know everyone at home is dying to know this, Reimu," Aya continued, still scribbling away. "Tell us how you're going to stop the dinosaurs!"

"I'm going to beat them all up," the shrine maiden said, for lack of a better sentence.

"Really?" The tengu turned over another page. "Well, we look forward to seeing the results of your efforts! Even though there are some who question that you can do anything at all. In fact, we already have reports saying that you spent last night getting very drunk and waking up barely coherent – "

"Excuse me?" Reimu interrupted. This was starting to get personal. "Are you saying I can't get drunk if I want to? Do you know how many people got drunk at Yukari's last party?" She stared at the reporter in outrage. "Aya, _you_ were drunk at the last one! Don't show me any of that cheek!"

Aya froze upon hearing that, a faint flush rising in her cheeks. "Ah," she said slowly. "Well, I guess we won't be putting that part in." She moved to the next page of her notepad. "Our next question for Reimu Hakurei! What are your bets on the next diplodocus race? Everyone's rooting for Mad Maxine and Green Goblin, but it's twenty to one odds on the Pterodactyl Riders from the fairies!"

"I am not answering that question!" Reimu snapped. This was getting ridiculous. She raised her gohei, wondering if Aya would go away if she used a spellcard on her. "I'm not continuing this interview either! I never agreed to this, Aya. I'm actually tryingto _stop_ these dinosaurs, which nobody else is bothering to do! Don't you think you should leave me alone and just let me do it?"

The reporter's eyes flashed, revealing a barely perceptible flicker of emotion. Then with a snap of her fingers, Aya shut the notepad and put it away. The moment was gone.

"Of course, Reimu," she said, smiling. "We can continue your interview later. I still have a _lot_ of interesting questions to ask you."

Swiftly, the dark-haired tengu beat her wings and rose up into the air, carrying the sheaf of newspapers with her.

"Don't worry," she called down. "I'll be back to finish your interview…when you least expect it. That's a promise, Reimu, from me to you!" She gave her a friendly wave. "Don't get eaten, now. Be seeing you."

With that, Aya vanished in a fierce whirlwind of magic, already on her way to the next delivery. The shrine maiden stared after her for several moments, wondering what the tengu had meant by her parting words. Was it something to be concerned about?

Reimu had no intention of ever having an interview with Aya again if she could help it. If all went well, however, she wouldn't need to. All she had to do was solve the dinosaur crisis quickly and make sure that Aya wouldn't be able to ask her anything about it.

 _No pressure, then,_ she thought, and slid open the door of the Hakurei shrine.

She was about to step inside when a goose walked out and pecked her on the foot. It honked at her before leaving.

The shrine maiden paused with a familiar look of bewilderment on her face. She turned to look at the animal moving away through the grass and frowned. No, her eyes were not fooling her. It was definitely a goose.

She did not recall keeping a goose inside her room this morning. It would have been very strange to keep a goose in your bedroom, even by Gensokyo's standards. She did not remember ever keeping a goose at the Hakurei shrine in her entire life.

With an uncomfortable feeling in her throat, Reimu walked into the main room – and felt her mouth drop at the sight before her.

Marisa and Sanae were sitting inside, chatting to each other and drinking as if they had all the time in the world. The two girls were playing a board game set out on the table which appeared to be chess, though it was like no game of chess that Reimu had ever set eyes upon because all the pieces were shaped like dinosaurs.

To add to that, Sanae was holding a live goose on her lap.

"Hey, Reimu," Marisa greeted her spiritedly. "Finally got here, did you?" She moved one of her pieces across the board. "Sanae and me are just playin' some Dinosaur Chess. Don't mind us."

The shrine maiden returned her gaze with nothing short of helplessness and a desperate longing for a rational explanation to this chain of events. She could already tell that this was going to be difficult.

"How did you get here before me?" she said quietly.

Marisa looked at her in surprise. "What?"

"Your race! What happened to your dinosaur race?" Reimu sat down on the floor in a huff, forcing herself to pay no attention to the goose in the room. "I thought you two were going to embark on a week-long diplodocus race into the ocean!"

"Oh, that," the magician said dismissively, pulling a face. "Nah. It got boring after you left."

"My diplodocus fell asleep," Sanae said mournfully, stroking her goose. "And Marisa's diplodocus started going in the wrong direction. It wasn't worth it anymore." She moved her raptor piece diagonally to the right. "My raptor captured your diplodocus! Your turn!"

Reimu watched the girls move their pieces, her mind troubled. She should have felt a sense of relief that she no longer had to wait days and days for her companions to turn up. Instead, she only felt frustrated and rather confused. Maybe it was the presence of the goose which bothered her.

"I see," she said. "I see. And…Dinosaur Chess…?"

Marisa took a sip of her drink and pointed at the board. "It's what we're playing now," she explained. "Pawns are raptors, knights are diplodocuses, bishops are allosauruses, the queen is a T-rex, and the king is a goose."

"A _goose?"_

The magician pushed her T-rex piece forward four spaces and let out a triumphant cheer. "Goosemate!" she yelled. "I win!"

"Oh no!" Sanae wailed. She pushed over her goose piece where it tumbled over in a gesture of surrender. "You have captured my goose. I admit defeat…"

Reimu stared infuriatingly at her two friends nestled over the chess set, her gaze travelling towards the real live goose on Sanae's lap. The animal looked at her questioningly with its beady little eyes and let out a loud honk which made her ears ring.

This was really doing her head in. She had tried to ignore the goose, tried not to acknowledge it in the hopes that nature would take its course and it would fade away into obscurity – or preferably turn into somebody's dinner – but this clearly wasn't working. This new obsession with geese had to stop, and it had to stop now.

"Marisa. Sanae." She folded her arms testily. "You are not helping. I didn't call you here so that you could spend ages drinking and playing dinosaur games! As for the goose – "

Her words died in her throat when she saw what was lying underneath the table.

It was a flat, soggy and very sorry-looking piece of cardboard. Unfortunately, she was still able to recognise it.

"Is that my donation box?" she demanded.

She became aware at this point that Marisa and Sanae were suddenly avoiding her gaze. Both girls had become extremely interested in the floors and ceiling of the shrine.

"Right," Reimu said dangerously. "What on earth happened to my donation box? Who's going to tell me?" She turned towards the most suspicious of the pair. "Marisa?"

Reluctantly, the blonde magician met her gaze.

"We were just gonna use it as a prop," she tried. "To put the goose in. I mean, the money was in the way so we left it outside."

"I noticed," Reimu said, remembering how she had tripped over it on the way in. "That…makes perfect sense. Why is it squashed?"

Sanae raised her hand. "I sat on it," she said.

"You _sat_ on it," repeated the shrine maiden.

"The goose stepped on it as well," Marisa added. "And then we knocked over some of the tea and it soaked into the box. So it might be a bit soggy."

Reimu looked squarely at her two friends and wondered exactly how much time they had spent inside her shrine for things to deteriorate this far. It was just as well that she had gotten back earlier. The entire place might have been wrecked otherwise, if not turned into a farmyard. Now she was going to have to find a new donation box, though that was certainly the least of her problems.

"Never mind the box for now," she said. "Will somebody please explain the goose? Sanae, _why_ did you bring that goose in here? We can't have animals in the Hakurei shrine. Get rid of it immediately!"

"I will not abandon Gerald," the wind priestess said fiercely. "To you, Reimu, this is just an ordinary goose, but to me…he is my _son._ "

Reimu opened her mouth to speak, and then shut it again. She could not have heard what she thought she had just heard. Somebody in this room was clearly on a different planet altogether.

"I'm sorry, could you say that again?" she asked with as much sympathy as she could muster.

"This goose is my son," Sanae said defiantly with a straight face. "I have adopted him and named him Gerald."

Despairingly, the shrine maiden turned to Marisa for an explanation, or for as good an explanation as she could hope to receive. Marisa shrugged in response.

"She had more drinks than I did," she said defensively.

"Marisa, how much do you have to drink to get ideas about mothering a goose? If I drank that much I would already be dead!" Reimu started to reach towards the goose in Sanae's arms. "Sanae, give the goose to me! I'll get rid of it!"

"Never!" the wind priestess cried, pulling the animal away. "You're not getting custody of Gerald! I fought for him in a court of law!"

"Oh, for god's sake. Give me the damn goose, Sanae! We don't have time for this!"

Sanae grabbed the goose back, backing away from her. "No! I have a dream, Reimu. A dream where I am the mother of all geese. Honk! Honk, honkity honk they go and you will not take Gerald away from me. Never!" She suddenly let go of the goose and grabbed her own weapon, her face flushed with anger and slightly too much alcohol. "I'll fight you for this goose, Reimu! For Moriya Shrine! For goose and country! Because all of us are filled with love, and Gensokyo is an acceptable haven for everyone and everygoose! No exceptions! And I'll – "

Her face suddenly went slack and she fell backwards, slumping unconscious upon the hard floor of the Hakurei shrine. The goose raised its head, looked up at the other two girls, and then walked out of the shrine as if nothing had happened.

There were several seconds of silence, during which Reimu glanced at Marisa with more than a passing suspicion. This was not normal.

"Don't look at me," the blonde magician said with a scowl. "I didn't do anything."

"I really want to know what you two were drinking." The shrine maiden paused and then squeezed her eyes shut. "No. Never mind. I _don't_ want to know."

"'Course you don't." Marisa grinned. "C'mon, Reimu. Look on the bright side. At least we got rid of the goose."

"We? Marisa, you didn't do a thing. You probably made it worse by joining in with her in the only game of Dinosaur Chess where the king is _also_ a goose! Do I have to do everything myself?"

"I was gonna Master Spark the goose anyway. It looked so delicious. I just wanted to eat it for dinner."

Reimu sighed and stepped over to the unconscious wind priestess, dragging her feet as she did so. "I'm never leaving you alone in the same room with Sanae and a bottle of sake again," she said. "Come on, Marisa. Help me move her outside…"

* * *

It was fully fifteen minutes before Sanae regained consciousness. Groggily, she rubbed her eyes in the bright sunlight, looking very surprised to find herself in the outdoors with Reimu and Marisa on either side of her. The wind priestess gave both of them a puzzled look, wondering if something had happened.

"Whatever are you two doing?" she asked. "Reimu? Are you all right?"

The shrine maiden raised her head from the freshly dug earth around her, hands and knees covered with soil and mud. Slowly, she lowered the spade she was holding and tossed it away.

"Yes," she said empathetically.

Sanae looked at her worriedly. "Are you…digging a hole?"

"Yes. I am. I'm burying my feelings." The shrine maiden scraped the dirt off her fingers and rolled over on the grass next to her friend. "Is that it, then? Are we _finally_ going to start before I lose my mind?"

There was a burst of magic energy nearby, a loud squawk, and a bird plummeted out of the sky. The two girls turned to see Marisa firing stars at a flock of archaeopteryxes, causing the creatures to take flight and scatter into the forest.

"Marisa, stop doing that!" Reimu called towards her. "Sanae's awake now. It's time to get started."

The magician fired one last shot at a pterodactyl flying overhead, then reluctantly lowered her broomstick and came over to join them. She looked suspiciously at Sanae upon seeing her recovered so quickly, peering at her closely with disbelief. The wind priestess gazed back in wide-eyed innocence.

"You just woke up like that?" she said. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Of course," Sanae replied cheerfully. "I feel fine."

"You sure?" Marisa narrowed her eyes and started prodding her friend's cheeks. "No splittin' headaches? Nausea? Urge to vomit? Sudden flashbacks of embarrassing things you did whilst under the influence? All the healthy feelings you get after getting too drunk all at once?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Marisa. Can you please stop poking me?"

Reimu shook her head in wonder. Miraculously, Sanae seemed to be in perfect physical health with no ill-effects despite having drunk enough to go into tirades about geese. The shrine maiden had heard of many strange things happening in Gensokyo, but immunity to hangovers had to be a new one. Maybe this was just Sanae's idea of producing a miracle.

"You don't remember anything at all, do you?" she asked.

"Of course I remember," Sanae replied with a trace of annoyance. "I was having fun on a diplodocus with Marisa, and then we travelled to the Hakurei shrine, and then I fell asleep whilst having a drink. I guess I was just a bit tired."

Marisa still seemed unconvinced. She gave the green-haired girl one last poke and received no satisfactory reaction.

"You definitely don't remember the goose?" she said loudly.

With rapidly declining patience, Reimu grabbed the blonde magician and hit her with the side of her purification rod, sending her tumbling off the grass.

"Ow!"

" _Don't_ mention the goose to her," she whispered angrily in her friend's ear. "You'll just start her off again!"

"It feels a bit chilly out here," Sanae admitted. "I think I might be getting goosebumps."

"Goose!" Marisa yelled, seizing upon the opportunity. "She said the goose!"

Reimu stamped her foot on the ground. "Shut _up!"_ she snapped. "Stop talking about the goose! No more geese! I can't take it anymore!" With a groan, she lay back on the grass and tried to calm down. Deep breaths, Reimu, she told herself. Deep breaths.

"Listen," she said. "We're just going to talk about dinosaurs, understand? That's the whole reason we came here in the first place. We still have an incident to deal with." She paused for a moment, aware that for once she actually held everyone's attention. "Has everybody got that? Marisa, Sanae, I want to hear your ideas about how to put a stop to the dinosaur invasion. I'm sure you all have some very good strategies, so let's hear them."

There was brief silence as the other girls started to mull it over. The shrine maiden closed her eyes and listened to the birdsong in the forest, the roars of the dinosaurs echoing across Gensokyo, enjoying the feel of the comforting breeze against her skin.

She felt herself relax and slip away from the world as if in a dream. For a moment, she imagined that all of her responsibilities and worries had been lifted off her shoulders…

"I've got an idea," Marisa said confidently. "We're gonna defeat the dinosaurs with our own army of mutated zombie geese. Total goose apocalypse."

Reimu opened her eyes again.

"No, but listen," the blonde magician said seriously. "You find the goose that escaped, right, and clone it. We genetically mutate it using magic, build a factory to manufacture more, and once we work out how to travel backwards in time – "

"Please stop," the shrine maiden said flatly.

"Well, you _asked,_ Reimu. If you ever want someone to take you on a wild goose chase then you know who to call."

"Enough with the goose already!" she yelled. They were getting nowhere here. She turned to face the remaining dinosaur-loving member of their group who hadn't spoken out yet. "Sanae, what about you? What do you think?"

The wind priestess looked at her in surprise. "What do I think of what?"

"How are we going to stop the dinosaurs?"

Sanae was silent for several moments then, her lips pursed in thought. She screwed up her face in concentration before finally shaking her head.

"I'm sorry, Reimu," she said sadly. "I can't think of anything. This seems too big for us to deal with."

Reimu's shoulders slumped. "No ideas at all?" she asked.

"Well…I guess there _is_ one small idea at the back of my mind, but it's probably nothing worth saying."

"Let's hear it anyway," Marisa said hopefully. "We might as well."

The wind priestess hesitated, looking at both of her friends for approval. They nodded towards her, and she took a deep breath before speaking again.

"Here's my idea," she said. "Since the dinosaurs were probably summoned to Gensokyo by a dominant force from another plane of existence or created by a combination of two or more distinct life-forms which may or may not be acting independently, we should try looking at magic spells which focus on finding the source of such disruption in the multiple types of energy which stem from summon magic, as well as finding out where the dinosaurs' population has the greatest density within Gensokyo and searching for a correlation which can explain the sharp rise in population growth, whilst also looking at any factors which might be caused by the same kind of magic."

There was a long silence in which the other two girls just stared at her, speechless with astonishment.

"But that's just an idea at the back of my head," Sanae added. "It's probably not that important."

Marisa stole a glance towards Reimu, watching to see how she would react. When there was nothing, the magician sprang to her feet enthusiastically.

"That," she declared, "is _exactly_ what I was thinking. Great idea, Sanae. I've no idea what the hell you just said, but great idea."

Reimu shook her head dizzily, no longer able to tell if her friends were just making everything up anymore. What was she supposed to make of this? Fifteen minutes ago, these two had adopted a goose into her shrine and poured tea onto her donation box, and now here they were constructing a _coherent_ plan of action to help her stop the dinosaur crisis. She couldn't decide if they were trying to drive her crazy or were just deliberately incompetent when they felt like it.

"Sanae, how did you think up all of that?" she asked. "That's a fantastic place to start! It really is."

"It's just common sense," the green-haired girl said with a shrug. "Well…I guess not, but I heard Lady Kanako talking about summoning magic the other day whilst I was training. It just seemed to fit."

Marisa smirked. "Really? No offence, Sanae, but most people in the village think you're a bit of an airhead. It's just kinda surprising coming from you, you know?"

"Excuse me?" The wind priestess sounded greatly offended. "Why would anyone think I was an airhead? I live with two goddesses who have centuries of knowledge at their fingertips! That's just really insulting!"

Reimu clapped her hands together, glad that they finally had a plan of action. It hadly seemed possible, but maybe this wouldn't be so daunting at all. "That's what we'll do, then," she said. The spirit and determination had returned to her voice now that there was a path to follow. "We'll look into the art of summoning magic and see whether the dinosaurs' arrival is connected. If we're going to start investigating this properly, then we need to consult an expert. Marisa, you're the magic-user here."

"Yeah," Marisa said proudly. "You got that right."

She raised her broomstick aloft and struck a pose, before realising that the shrine maiden was looking at her expectantly. The smile froze on her face.

"What?" She blinked. "You're askin' _me?"_

Reimu nodded. "Of cousre. You're a magician, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but… I don't do summoning magic, Reimu. It's not my area. I practice long-range attack magic. The two things are completely different!" She backed away from the shrine maiden slightly, seeming visibly affronted. "Don't ask me to try this stuff! It can get really dangerous if you mess up and summon the wrong spirit. Plus, you gotta spend hours of your life memorisin' most of the damn spellbook just to get it right. I've dabbled in summons once or twice, but I'm no expert…"

"Then who _is?_ "

Marisa hesitated. "Patchouli." Gradually, the tension eased out of her face. "She knows all about that kind of thing. Her library's packed full of volumes about every kind of magic that ever existed. There's even an entire section about summoning."

"Then that's where we should go," Sanae said at once. "The Scarlet Devil Mansion. We need to find Patchouli and see what she can tell us."

The blonde magician gave her a dark look. "She might just tell us we're out of our minds, you know. The dinosaurs weren't summoned here. No spell can transport thousands of beasts into Gensokyo in one night, 'specially animals that're supposed to be long dead. We still don't know how they really got here."

"I know, but it's our only lead right now," Reimu said. "We'd better get moving before the dinosaurs do any more damage to Gensokyo." The Yin-Yang orbs appeared around her, preparing to take flight into the air. "Let's not waste any more time - "

" _Time, Reimu?"_

The familiar voice behind her made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. It was an older female voice which she recognised instantly, a voice that she had been searching for all day. Almost immediately, she sensed a change in the air, though she knew also that the manipulation of borders was as silent as ever…

Reimu whirled around on the spot, the purification rod ready in her hands as her breath caught in her throat.

Then she saw her. A tall woman with long blonde hair and golden eyes standing before the Hakurei shrine with infinite calm, a secretive smile on her face which spoke a thousand words. She wore a pale pink dress with a purple tabard on top and it seemed to Reimu as if she had eyes only for her. The woman carried a parasol in one hand, as if protecting herself from the elements, though in truth there was very little that posed a danger to her throughout all of Gensokyo.

 _I've been looking for you, Yukari._

Behind her, a tiny slit of darkness was the only evidence of the boundary closing up behind her. At her will, the last remnants disappeared altogether.

"Good day to you, Reimu," Yukari Yakumo said pleasantly, her face radiant within the shadow of her parasol. "How are we finding the dinosaurs lately? A little prehistoric for your taste? Oh, my." She motioned with her umbrella and smiled at her. "You seem a little under the weather today, so I'll just ask you now. How would you like me to change your world?"


	4. Fire and Ice

**A/N: I'm back after a spell of demotivation so will continue to write this. Thanks for all your views and reviews, as always!**

Deep inside the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, a lone figure treaded the broken trail with soft, gentle steps, listening to the deathly silence which filled the air. She had the appearance of a youthful woman, with beautiful dark hair that fell across her shoulders and pale white skin in contrast, yet her eyes shone with an eternal light which had not faded for many generations. The world had not degenerated to such a point so as to encourage her to leave it quite yet.

Kaguya Houraisan turned for a moment, floating above the ground as she spied a faint red light through the trees. A brief smile appeared on her face: she knew all too well who was waiting for her out there. Kill or be killed, just like they always did. Even after all this time, she did not tire of destroying her immortal foe. The satisfaction of putting her down was worth it every time.

Death was not an option for someone like her. She would live today, live tomorrow, and continue to live a hundred thousand years from now. It didn't make any difference to her. It was encouraging, however, to know that she was not the only one destined to live forever.

She summoned a glowing orb of magic in one hand and prepared a barrier spell in the other. Mokou had won the last fight yesterday. She could still see the triumphant look in the phoenix girl's eyes as she burned Kaguya to death, then waited for her to revive, before killing her again in exactly the same way. It had not been pleasant. The acrid smell of her own flesh burning was still fresh in her mind.

Kaguya felt anger flood through her just thinking about it. How dare Mokou take advantage like that in such a dishonourable and unjustified fashion? There were no strict boundaries when fighting to the death, but she personally respected the traditional rules of a duel between two combatants. It was only fair. She viewed her adversary as an uncouth, ill-mannered girl who lived alone in the middle of a bamboo forest, whereas _she_ was the moon princess of the Lunarians; esteemed, respectable and a force to be reckoned with. She would simply have to teach the girl her place once more.

 _Be prepared, Mokou,_ she thought darkly. The red light in the trees grew brighter as she approached the clearing ahead. _You were so good to me last night. Let me return the favour._

The moon princess rushed through the bamboo trees and into a wide, open clearing, ready to release her spell in a single, destructive attack. Instead, she found something that made her stop in her tracks.

Fujiwara no Mokou lay motionless on the ground next to a small bonfire. She was huddled close for warmth with her eyes tightly closed and no trace of magic around her. The phoenix girl's arms were held loosely to one side and she seemed completely defenceless. It was a perfect opportunity to attack her whilst she was vulnerable. The fire hadn't been burning for long.

 _She's asleep?_

Kaguya stood there for several moments, the spell in her hands gradually dying away. Her enemy was right here, exactly where she wanted her. If she wished, she could use all of the power at her disposal to destroy her, crush her, make her sorry that she had ever messed with Kaguya Houraisan. Of course, Mokou would come back to life soon afterwards, but the memory of the pain would remain…

 _No!_

She sat down quickly, crossing her legs and staring at her adversary. This was below her. Attacking a sleeping enemy was highly dishonourable and nothing less than cowardice. Besides, Mokou would taunt her for centuries about it. She _knew_ she would. She knew Mokou would go on and on, boasting how Kaguya had to resort to dirty tactics by attacking her in her sleep, how she was too weak to take her in a straight fight…

 _I can wait,_ the moon princess thought silently _. I have plenty of time for you, Mokou. I'll wait for you to wake up. I'll give you a little wave as you open your eyes, splash a bit of water on your face, maybe share some breakfast with you to get you in the mood. And then…I'll kill you. I'll tear you to pieces and teach you not to mess with me like you did last night. Maybe you'll enjoy the experience._

"Wake up, Mokou," Kaguya whispered. "Wake up. Revenge is sweet, but you're spoiling the taste."

There was no reaction from the white-haired phoenix girl, nothing to indicate that she had even heard her words. That was strange: Mokou had superb instincts, the kind of honed senses you had after fighting Kaguya every day for hundreds of years. She _should_ have heard her.

Was she in that much of a deep sleep? It was past midday, after all. This was no time to be resting. Something about this scene was highly suspicious.

Slowly, Kaguya nudged the phoenix girl's body with her foot.

A circle of blazing fire immediately sprang up around her, alerting her too late to the presence of the trap. As her vision blazed red, she was just barely aware of Mokou whirling round to attack her at close range. One hand punched through the magical barrier she had prepared, grabbing her neck and burning her skin to the touch. Wincing, the moon princess released a rapid stream of multi-coloured danmaku into her opponent's body and blasted the girl back into the trees.

 _Sneaky._

She rubbed her neck painfully, already feeling her injuries begin to heal. It was a slow process, but better than nothing. Mokou's magic had formed a harsh resistance to her own over many centuries, and now it was getting harder to counteract the effects. She never had this much trouble with anyone else.

Kaguya scanned the forest clearing quickly but saw no sign of where her enemy had fallen. That was expected, because Mokou never stayed in the same place for too long during a battle. Area of effect spell it was, then.

" _Divine Treasure: Buddhist Diamond!"_

The spellcard unleashed a barrage of rotating danamku which shredded the surrounding trees and took out part of the forest floor as well. She changed the angle of her attack slightly as she continued her onslaught, making sure there was absolutely nowhere for her enemy to hide.

To her frustration, she still couldn't see Mokou anywhere. Countless bamboo trees had been cut to pieces in the wake of her assault, and she knew the phoenix girl wouldn't have fled from the fight. Not in a million years.

 _Where is she?_

A flicker of red appeared on her vision from the extreme left. Typical: it was right next to her blind spot. She spun around to face the multitude of fireballs raining down on her from above, twisting round to dodge as best as she could, but there were many to avoid completely. There wasn't time to use a barrier spell to block the attack, either. Throwing caution to the winds, she went on the offensive instead and brought her hands together, focusing her current spellcard directly on her opponent.

"Burn to ashes," Mokou cried, a mesmerised look on her face. For a moment it was like the flames were dancing in her eyes as well.

Kaguya braced herself as their two spells slammed into each other head-on. The resulting impact sent both girls flying to opposite sides of the clearing, smoke rising from the explosion. The moon princess fought to control her trajectory, knowing that she risked impaling herself on the dangerous sharp stumps of the bamboo trees if she wasn't careful

She managed to throw herself to the side as Mokou hurled another fireball at her from behind. Somehow, she dodged this last attack too before they both crashed unceremoniously into the ground.

Winded but mostly unhurt, Kaguya slowly picked herself up again. As far as she was concerned, this battle had barely started. She saw that Mokou took a few extra seconds to get up, and smiled with satisfaction.

"You're slowing down, Mokou," she called out tauntingly towards her adversary. "What's wrong? Too tired to fight me seriously?"

The phoenix girl clicked her fingers, and her entire arm was bathed in glowing flames. Her pale shirt was partially burned from her own magic, suspenders reaching up to her shoulders, and the grass was scorched beneath her feet as she walked forward calmly.

"Don't mock me, Kaguya," she replied with a challenging look in her crimson eyes. "I'll never get tired of watching you burn. You made for such an easy target, you know? I knew you wouldn't attack me if you thought I was sleeping."

The moon princess bristled at that. "A cheap under-handed trick. You must be getting really desperate if you have to resort to something like that to gain victory."

"You're more the fool for falling for something so simple." Mokou laughed lightly as she continued to move forward a few steps, her muscles tensing faintly. Out in the distance, there was a slight tremor which shook the forest floor, but neither of them paid it any attention. "So tell me, Kaguya. What's it going to be today? How do you think I'm going to end your life this time?"

"I don't mind dying, just so long as you go first. I was just thinking of two words to describe your next death at my hands." The moon princess opened her hands to reveal two glowing orbs generating gem-like danmaku which began to rise up into the air above her, revolving in a circle around her. "Total obliteration. How's that sound?"

Another quake ran through the Bamboo Forest, then another. This time, both girls hesitated at the sound; it was not at all common for earthquakes to occur in this part of Gensokyo. Seconds later, however, there was only silence. After a short pause, Kaguya turned her attention once more to the white-haired girl in front of her. Their battle was much more important than random tremors.

"I won't be satisfied with just killing you this time, Mokou," she said. "You were especially sadistic to me last night. Too much for your own good. A new dose of pain will work wonders for you and teach you your place."

There was a loud roar from deep inside the Bamboo Forest, followed by a great trampling sound, as if a large animal was stampeding through the place. Again, both of them deliberately ignored it.

"Just try it," the phoenix girl taunted her. "You can barely keep your eyes on me anymore. Sheer power won't work against me when I can just penetrate your defences and burn you from the inside out. The sooner you work out that you can't win, the sooner that – "

Her voice was drowned out by the arrival of a great herd of utahraptors and allosauruses which charged into the area, flattening every tree in their path. At least a dozen of the carnivorous dinosaurs were now stampeding through the area and causing havoc through the Bamboo Forest. Kaguya and Mokou stared in complete astonishment as the creatures let out a deafening roar as one which could be heard for miles.

 _What on earth - ?_

The ground shook once more, and then a Tyrannosaurus Rex thundered into the clearing.

Bewildered, Kaguya looked at the ferocious group of dinosaurs laying waste to the forest. She had never seen such beasts before, not in all of her years here at Gensokyo, nor did she recognise them from her time at the Lunar Kingdom. It was a complete mystery to her where they had even come from.

The dinosaurs had noticed them, too. One giant foot was raised to crush her underfoot. Kaguya dodged it easily, before being forced to take cover as the other allosauruses kept trying to squash her. From her vantage point, she watched as Mokou set one of the raptors on fire. The moon princess didn't feel any real fear from these beasts, although the sight of the T-rex was slightly worrying.

It just annoyed her a lot. How dare they interfere whilst she was in the middle of fighting Mokou?

"Kaguya!" the phoenix girl yelled across to her, blasting another allosaurus to the ground with a casual flick of her hand. "You're a complete hypocrite!"

"Excuse me?"Kaguya dodged another giant foot coming down towards her, then fired a stream of danmaku which took down another dinosaur. "What are you talking about?"

"You criticised me for pretending to be asleep by saying I use dirty tactics, and then you pull _this_ one on me!" Mokou looked genuinely angry about it whilst sending a fourth creature to its demise with a well-placed fireball. "Setting all these wild animals on me in the middle of our personal battle? Is this really your idea of a fair fight? Shame on you!"

"I didn't bring them here!" Kaguya cried indignantly, flying forward as another cluster of bamboo trees almost fell on her. "Why would I do that? Why would you _think_ that?"

The phoenix girl punched a raptor in the face and followed up with a fiery explosion which decimated the dinosaur behind it. "All right," she said. "You didn't send them?"

"Of course not!"

"Then why are they all attacking me?"

She had a point. As far as Kaguya could tell, almost all of the dinosaurs in the clearing had converged on Mokou, jaws snapping at her head in rapid succession. The white-haired girl was having none of it, however. None of the dinosaurs even came close to scratching her before she sent them flying back again.

"I think it's because you're the one glowing bright red with fire all over your body," the moon princess suggested. "It makes for an attractive target. And by the way, a few of them are trying to eat me as well." She glanced upwards in alarm as another dinosaur crushed a tree next to her. "You could try… _not_ glowing red all the time?"

"Are you serious? There is never an excuse not to be glowing red with fire!"

There were still several dinosaurs left stampeding through the Bamboo Forest, and Kaguya was getting really put out now. She had been in the middle of killing Mokou with great satisfaction when all of these creatures had turned up and ruined it. Impatiently, she blasted another allosaurus down with a single spellcard. She'd brought a lot of spellcards with her today in preparation for their daily duel to the death, so she might as well use some of them against these beasts.

 _These creatures have the audacity to try and kill Mokou? Nobody's allowed to kill her. That's_ my _job!_

Throughout this time, the T-rex had remained completely still at the edge of the clearing, almost as if it was observing the whole scene from a distance. It did not attack, nor react in any way. Something about it didn't feel quite right to Kaguya, but she didn't have time to think about that now.

"Take _that!"_

Another dinosaur fell, then another, as both girls unleashed their attacks upon the invading beasts. It was several more minutes before all of the great beasts finally lay still on the ground, either dead or incapacitated. Kaguya and Mokou were both panting from exertion by the end of it, worn out from having to expend their energy again and again against an unpredictable threat. A few stray spells had set the Bamboo Forest alight in places, but it wasn't a major fire to be worried about. The magic would burn out on its own before long.

"Finally," Mokou said impatiently, stifling the flames on her clothes. "I have no idea what that was for – " She kicked the corpse of one of the raptors at her feet with a look of disgust on her face. " – but it put me into a really bad mood. Can we go back to killing each other now?"

"Right," Kaguya agreed. "Forget these stupid animals. Back to the real reason we came here!"

All at once, there was an ear-splitting roar from the edge of the clearing. A huge muscular leg slammed into the ground, then another, each thud sending another tremor through the forest floor. Savage claws lifted high into the air, and a great slavering mouth opened to reveal two rows of monstrous teeth.

Slowly, Mokou and Kaguya turned to see the T-Rex advance towards them.

The clearing was now cluttered with the piled-up bodies of dinosaurs, and this sight seemed to enrage the creature further. Both girls remained quite still as the earth shook beneath the dinosaur's tree-trunk feet. It felt as if the forest being ripped apart.

 _Brace yourself,_ Kaguya thought, preparing to use her next spellcard against the dinosaur. Across from her, she sensed Mokou doing the same. _This one looks tougher._

Unexpectedly, the T-Rex came to an abrupt stop at the edge of the burning trees. It looked down towards them, eyes strangely unfocused, and let out another great roar which could surely be heard across all of Gensokyo.

From this distance, a shimmering light could be seen rising into the air just behind the dinosaur's head. The moon princess frowned when she saw it, her eyes widening in surprise when she recognised what it was. She sensed magic at play here. A _lot_ of magical power, to be exact, and it made her feel much more wary than before.

 _There's someone riding that beast,_ she realised. _Somebody…is controlling that creature…and they're using magic to do it._

Kaguya took a tentative step forward, trying to make out the form of the T-Rex's rider. The shining light solidified momentarily and then a face came into view.

She saw a woman hovering in the air above the dinosaur's back, but it was no woman that she had ever seen before. It was difficult to tell if they were human or youkai, though they seemed humanoid to some extent. There was a huge strain of magical energy present around this person, and alarmingly enough she found herself unable to determine what any of it was…

"Kaguya?"

She snapped out of her reverie to hear Mokou calling her name. The moon princess gave her a quizzical look.

"I don't know who that woman is," Mokou said, "but whoever she is, she definitely isn't from Gensokyo."

All at once, the shimmering light surrounding the strange woman intensified tenfold. Blinding light exploded outwards as if triggered by some adverse reaction. The two girls shielded their eyes from the harsh glow, as destructive energy shot out from the rider's body in a single beam of pure white light which seemed to blast apart the world around them…

* * *

"Yukari!" Reimu said fiercely, marching forward towards the youkai who had appeared discretely, as it was, out of thin air. "I have been searching for you _everywhere!_ "

She didn't know whether she was more furious or relieved to have found Yukari at last, at a critical time when she had such burning questions to ask her. With the arrival of dinosaurs throughout all of Gensokyo, the one person who might be able to explain the mystery of this phenomenon had been conveniently unavailable. Until now, that is.

"Everywhere?" Yukari laughed genially. She adjusted her umbrella under the glare of the sun, a bemused expression on her face. "Apparently not, or you might have found me. But isn't it nice to be wanted?"

"I didn't say you were wanted. Needed, yes." The shrine maiden put a hand on her hip sternly and paced a little, not even sure where to start. There wasn't room in her head to fit all of the things she wanted to ask the youkai standing in front of her. "Where have you been all this time?" she said finally. "Gensokyo has been invaded by dinosaurs since this morning!"

"I'm glad you noticed, Reimu."

"Noticed? Of course I noticed! I was woken up by them in the middle of my hangover." With an effort, Reimu forced herself to stop pacing and try and relax. Everything should be fine now, after all. "But now that you're here, I expect you can clear up this mess and explain everything. Isn't that right?"

Yukari gave her a winning smile in response but otherwise gave no indication that she was in agreement whatsoever. The shrine maiden's expression tensed with uncertainty. This was exactly what she had been worried about.

"You _are_ going to help explain what's going on, aren't you?" she said testily. "You aren't just going to give me a cryptic hint and then run off?"

"Well…" Yukari sighed. "I will say this. It's wonderful to know you have such high hopes even in this day and age, Reimu. And I would hate to crush them."

Marisa exchanged glances with Sanae. "She's going to crush them," she whispered to her.

Wordlessly, the youkai lifted up her free hand and opened it, revealing a strange silver-white object lying in her palm. As the three girls watched, the boundary opened up in the air, from which Yukari plucked out a second similar object…and then a third. The boundary closed again, so that the three unfamiliar objects remained in the blonde youkai's grasp.

Anxiously, Reimu stared at the three items that Yukari had retrieved. There were a whole range of things that these objects could possibly be, but one particular definition came to mind.

"What are these supposed to be?" she asked doubtfully. "Is that an…egg?"

The oval-like object moved from side to side. A small crack appeared in the top.

"I'm a little low on time myself, Reimu," Yukari said warmly, stepping forward towards her. "I'm not here to chat. Instead, let me grant you the pleasure of receiving this gift."

With that, she deposited the first egg into the shrine maiden's hands. Another crack appeared.

"Yukari," Reimu said, her voice shaking as she looked at the moving egg. Yes, it was definitely moving. "What _is_ this?"

Marisa whistled in awe. "Whoa," she said. "I think it's hatching…"

"Hatching?" Desperately, the shrine maiden turned back to Yukari. "Take it back! I don't want this!"

"No," the blonde youkai said simply with a twirl of her umbrella. "My present. Let's call it an early birthday present, which means you definitely can't give it back. Oh, of course. One for each of you." She swiftly gave the other two eggs to Marisa and Sanae. "There we go! I believe I have done my duty to Gensokyo here." The boundary opened up behind her again as she gave Reimu a parting wave. "Good luck with the dinosaurs, Reimu!"

"YUKARI!" Reimu shouted, rushing towards her with the partly hatched egg in her hands. "You can't just leave! Come back here this instant! What _is_ this thing?"

The egg in her hands moved more insistently, and fluid came out.

Horrified, she looked down to see a _living_ _creature_ stick its head out through the shell. It was vaguely reptilian in nature, staring up at her as the rest of the egg began to fall apart.

 _Oh no. It can't be._

"I would just like to say one more thing before I go," Yukari added, one step away from disappearing into the boundary. Her eyes met with Reimu's. "The dinosaur situation is still classified as an incident of Gensokyo. Incidents are your responsibility, Reimu. So when you were saying that I could "clear up this mess" - well, I'm afraid not, because it's on your shoulders. As you may have figured out already. Farewell!"

"Yukari!" the shrine maiden hollered. "You come back here right now! You haven't answered _any_ of my questions! You can't just leave us here with these eggs and thousands of dinosaurs running amok and - "

It was too late. The boundary closed with an air of finality and Yukari disappeared completely, so that Reimu's last words fell on deaf ears. She and her friends were left standing there with three hatching eggs in their arms. Eggs which, if she was not mistaken, contained the answer to the dinosaurs' rapidly increasing numbers.

Helplessly, she gazed down at the egg in her hand. A newborn living dinosaur looked back at her and gave a little cry. She winced and tried to avoid looking it in the eye.

 _I know I expected Yukari to be somewhat unhelpful,_ the shrine maiden thought to herself. _I didn't think she would explain everything, nor answer all of my questions at once. But I didn't expect her to go full circle by explaining nothing, answering_ none _of my questions, and making our situation even worse!_

The baby dinosaur in her hands let out another weird noise. Reimu had never held a baby before, but she instinctively knew that they didn't make sounds like that. On the other hand, it might be preferable to constant wailing, which was what happened to be the norm with human babies.

Her mind raced at why Yukari had chosen to give this egg to her, what on earth she was supposed to do with it now that it had hatched…and worse of all, what the existence of these eggs meant for the future of Gensokyo.

 _I can't deal with this. What do I do with this egg? What do I DO?_

"Marisa," she said weakly. "I need you to help me." After a moment's pause, Reimu decided against it. " _Sanae,"_ she declared instead, turning to the slightly more reliable of her current companions, "I need you to give me some wise words of wisdom which will make this situation easier to deal with."

Sanae beamed at her. "You are now the proud mother of a dinosaur baby," she said. "That is _not_ what I wanted to hear!"

Marisa was holding her own egg at arm's length, looking as if she wanted to be as far away from it as possible. "Well, I've seen everything now," she said. "Only Reimu's egg has hatched, but right now, I don't want to be a dinosaur mummy." She held her egg out to Reimu. "Here. You can adopt mine. I'm not cut out for parenthood."

"I could take it," Sanae said, her face shining. "Dinosaur twin babies. I wonder if Lady Kanako will let me keep it at Moriya Shrine? We could raise our own cute little dinosaur family."

Reimu squeezed her eyes shut. This was getting ridiculous. All she could think was that maybe this was Yukari's way of actually giving her a clue to the mystery surrounding the dinosaur incident. She had no idea where the youkai had found these specimens, but the eggs were surely the reason why the dinosaurs were multiplying so quickly. Was she expected to do something with them, perhaps?

She peered at her dinosaur baby, trying to see if she could gauge any clues from it at all. Its beady little eyes were fixed upon her. Try as she might, the shrine maiden couldn't work it out: she had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for. Unless…unless she was supposed to raise it, somehow. That brought a fresh stream of disturbing possibilities.

 _I refuse to keep this demented-looking baby,_ the shrine maiden decided, placing the hatched egg down on a rock. _Maybe I should just leave it here with one of the thousands of adult dinosaurs roaming Gensokyo. That way, I wouldn't be so tempted to throw it at a tree._

It occurred to her that perhaps Yukari just wanted to get rid of these eggs and had done so in typical Yukari fashion: by dumping them on Reimu and her friends. She hoped very much that this wasn't the case.

On that note, she recalled that Yukari had mentioned something about being short on time. What could the youkai possibly be doing which was so important, that she could barely spare a minute to explain to Reimu what was really going on? It was all very suspicious.

"Marisa," Reimu said slowly. "Yukari wouldn't do anything that would put Gensokyo in danger, would she?"

The blonde magician shook her head, busily poking her own egg with the tip of her broomstick. "Wouldn't think so."

"Even if she thought she was actually helping, somehow?"

Marisa shot her a look which implied that she should know better. "Yukari didn't let the dinosaurs in, Reimu," she said seriously. "You know her better than I do, and even _I_ know she wouldn't do that. Besides, it's physically impossible even for a youkai. You're tellin' me she opened a boundary to a dinosaur-infested planet somewhere and kidnapped every single dinosaur she could find?"

"And their eggs," Sanae said helpfully.

" _And_ their eggs?"

Reimu had to admit it sounded a bit of a tall story. Still, she couldn't quite dispel all of her doubts quite yet. "I don't know what she did, Marisa, but she's acting really suspiciously," she said. "She won't tell us anything and avoided all of my questions. And when she did turn up, she dumped these eggs on us and left!"

"To be honest, Reimu," Marisa remarked, "you _always_ think Yukari is acting suspiciously."

"That's because she always is!"

"Remember that time last year?" Sanae asked mildly, rolling her own unhatched dinosaur egg across the palm of her hand. "Remember when Reimu picked a fight with everyone in Gensokyo because she thought they were all acting suspiciously?"

Marisa nodded gravely. "Year before that, too."

"And the year before that."

"It's become like an annual thing now. I bet there's a special time of year known as Reimu Day where she just walks around beating everyone up for no reason. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest."

Reimu glared at the pair of them. "Marisa, will you shut up?" she asked. "That is not true at all, I'll have you know. I did not fight everyone in Gensokyo. I fought _nearly_ everyone in Gensokyo! And by the way, they really were all acting very suspiciously. Especially _you!_ "

The blonde magician rolled her eyes overdramatically. "I think today must be Reimu Day."

"We're getting off topic here." The dark-haired shrine maiden picked up her egg gingerly, noticing that the dinosaur inside was starting to move out of the shell completely. Discretely, she tried to push it back in, hoping it would stay there. "Let's look at what we have so far. Yukari has been absolutely no help whatsoever and I have no intention of keeping these eggs. I'm tempted to leave them here with one of the adult dinosaurs."

Sanae's face fell with disappointment. "You can't be serious," she said, sounding quite shocked. "You're…leaving your egg behind?"

"I'm not keeping it, Sanae." She poked the side of her egg and heard a _squelch_ sound in response. "It should live with its own kind."

"But that's terrible, Reimu. You're abandoning your own baby."

"It's a dinosaur," she replied irritably. "It's making weird sounds at me, it's covered with fluids, and I don't want to look at it. There's no chance that I can take it with me- "

Indignantly, Sanae sprang to her feet. "I must protest here, Reimu!" she cried, slapping the palm of her hand down against the nearest tree. "I thought you would be a better mother than this. There's no need to be so heartless! As your child, this dinosaur is your _own flesh and blood!"_

Slowly, the shrine maiden turned to stare at her testily. As much as she enjoyed Sanae's company, there were times when she felt that her friend was, for lack of a better word, completely batty. Especially where dinosaurs were involved.

She glanced towards Marisa for possible guidance and moral support, but the magician was preoccupied with balancing her own egg on her broomstick and wasn't really listening. Reluctantly, she turned back to Sanae.

"Please don't do this," she said between gritted teeth. "Please don't start another really stupid conversation."

"I would never abandon my own child to the unforgiving wilderness," Sanae said tearfully. "Be it human or dinosaur, every baby deserves the love and kindness of its parents. You should be ashamed, Reimu, casting your own offspring away like this."

"It's not my offspring, you idiot!" Reimu pointed at the baby reptilian face chirping away as it clambered to get out of the egg. She quickly pushed it back in again, though it was probably a doomed effort. "Look at it! Does it look like my offspring? If my skin turned green, it _still_ wouldn't look anything like me. This thing looks like Godzilla's little finger fell off and grew a face!"

"But you have a responsibility as a parent!" Sanae folded her arms, looking genuinely angry about the whole affair. Reimu couldn't think why. "You must care for your dinosaur baby. Feed it. Wipe its face. Name it!" She gasped aloud at the thought. "You haven't even _named_ your dinosaur yet! Quickly, name it before you lose all maternal attachment to it. I recommend calling it Timmy for a boy, or Sally if it's a girl – "

"Maternal attachment? _What_ maternal attachment?" the shrine maiden exploded. "I obviously didn't conceive this egg myself, Sanae! Yukari forced this baby on me!"

There was a guffaw from her right. She whirled around to see Marisa doubling over in a fit of laughter, clutching her sides.

 _Great. Just what I needed._

"I can't believe you just said that out loud," the magician said in-between chuckles, a smirk on her face. "Yukari…forced this baby on you…" She rolled over on the grass, trying to breathe from laughing so much. "That's the best thing I've heard all _year._ "

Fuming, Reimu grabbed her egg and nearly hurled it right at Marisa. With a distinct effort, she managed to stop herself, though she was tempted to really throw it at somebody if this went on for much longer. This was really getting on her nerves.

She didn't know which was worse: the green-haired maiden of Moriya Shrine, protesting angrily and passionately about the fate of a dinosaur baby that she'd received ten minutes ago, or the blonde magician over there who just thought everything here was a great big joke. Either way, every minute she spent with the two girls was another minute which threatened to drive her up the wall.

"This isn't funny! Stop laughing!" she snapped, getting more and more worked up. This was usually the point in which she started engaging with danmaku battles with the other person, but they couldn't waste time doing that. "Very funny, Marisa. _Really_ hilarious. Now if you would just shut up and try and be serious for just five minutes, then we might actually make some progress here!" She turned around to face her other friend. "That goes for you too, Sanae! Whether you like it or not, we have no choice but to leave the eggs behind and – "

She stopped when she saw Sanae's expression. The young woman looked angry enough to duel her on the spot. Reimu knew that once that happened, they would be here for _hours._

"Fine," she said heavily, knowing she was getting nowhere here. "Fine! I give up. We can take the damn eggs with us! We won't find a single use for them aside from a very strange form of missile, but I just despair with all of you. We can take them." She stamped her foot and cleaved a blade of grass through with her purification rod. "Are you happy now? _Are_ you?"

"Very happy," the green-haired girl sniffed. She sat down again, cradling her egg lovingly in her lap. "I'm glad we came to an understanding, Reimu. We must save the dinosaurs."

"We're trying to get rid of them, Sanae, not save them, and I would appreciate if you stopped sabotaging my every attempt to actually do that!" The shrine maiden forced herself to calm down, just trying to get her thoughts in order. What had they been talking about again? She kept getting sidetracked. "As I was _trying_ to saybefore," she said, still seething a little, "we will stick with the original plan. Yes, Sanae, we'll take the eggs with us. Thank you so much for reminding me. Marisa, was there anything you wanted to say?"

"Just something I'm wondering about," the blonde magician said thoughtfully, a frown on her face. "You say we're going for the original plan?"

"Yes. Is there a problem?"

"Well, the original plan was that we go to the Scarlet Devil Mansion and find Patchouli to help us, right?" Marisa paused with one hand on her broomstick. "You want us to bring these hatching dinosaur eggs right into the heart of the Scarlet Devil Mansion?"

With rapidly declining hope, Reimu simply looked at her and wondered if she could convey with hand gestures somehow that this was all Sanae's fault. She couldn't shake the feeling that it would be a really bad idea to take the dinosaur eggs with them. It would probably be a bad thing in general, but there was no way this could possibly work out in their favour.

 _Remilia and I have been on relatively good terms recently,_ she thought privately. _Even so, I'm sure she is_ not _going to be pleased if I turn up at her front door with all these eggs…_

"I have an idea," Sanae said. "If Patchouli has a spell related to summoning and dinosaurs, then maybe she knows what to do with the eggs as well? It's a good enough reason to take the eggs over to the Scarlet Devil Mansion."

"Yeah, but what if she can't?" Marisa said, looking a bit worried. "What're we going to do with the eggs then?"

Reimu looked at her in surprise. "Why are _you_ worried about it? I'm the one whose egg hatched first. I feel like I picked up the wrong baby in the hospital and it started crying. I don't even know what type of dinosaur it _is."_ Against her better judgement, she held out her hatched egg to Sanae. "You're the dinosaur expert. What dinosaur is that supposed to be?"

"My expertise does not cover baby dinosaurs," the green-haired girl said solemnly. "In times like these, it shall hereby be known as…Dinosaur Zero."

Marisa shook his head. "Never mind what dinosaur it is. What I'm saying is, Reimu, that _all_ our eggs are going to hatch eventually. I'm not keeping mine, no matter what Sanae says. We need to know what Yukari expects us to do with them – and fast."

"That's obvious!" Sanae said passionately. "We shall mother them. Nurture them! Care for them! How much you care for your baby will determine how it develops later in life."

"I know how my dinosaur's gonna develop all right. It's going to develop a low mortality rate when I chuck it in the pond." She looked at the dark-haired shrine maiden quizzically. "So? Don't we have any idea what they're for?"

Reimu didn't know if she would have an answer for her. Despite her best efforts, she was still no closer to working out what to do with the eggs, aside from waiting for them to hatch. It just seemed to complicate matters further.

"Your guess is as good as mine, Marisa," she replied uneasily. "Hopefully Patchouli can help us with that little mystery. That's all I can say until we have some more clues." The shrine maiden raised her purification rod. "Now, if everyone's ready, it's about time we started moving. Remilia won't be happy at all when we bring these eggs inside her mansion, but I want all of you to promise that you will _not_ provoke her into a fight. That's the last thing we need." Her gaze settled on each of her friends. "Can you promise me that?"

Marisa hesitated, clearly having second thoughts. "Fine," she grumbled. "Guess I should save my spellcards for the horde of dinosaurs."

"Good. Sanae?"

The green-haired girl nodded confidently. "Absolutely, Reimu," she said earnestly. "I give you my word that I will not provoke Remilia, nor any other residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, into fighting us."

"That's great." Reimu breathed a sigh of relief, glad that they had finally gotten somewhere. There was still hope for the future of their trio. "We're all set, then. Let's not waste any more time and start moving!"

With that, the three girls flew up into the air and headed in the direction of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, their dinosaur eggs in tow. Just this once, the shrine maiden hoped that they'd covered absolutely everything and that nothing else would go wrong, though it might be a lot to ask for.

A fight with Remilia could go on all day and waste precious time. All they had to do was find Patchouli and get some logical answers: the kind of answers that Yukari had failed to give them. It was a reasonable request to ask the mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, especially with dinosaurs roaming everywhere. Reimu felt fairly confident about what lay ahead.

Unnoticed by anybody, the tiniest of cracks appeared across the two unhatched eggs as they ascended, and something moved within.

* * *

Flying to the Scarlet Devil Mansion would take a good few hours from the Hakurei Shrine, even under optimal conditions. Thankfully, even though the earth was clearly under the domination of prehistoric beasts, the same could not be said of the skies above. In fact, it was clear flying for at least an hour before the three girls spotted any real signs of life above ground.

It was good to have a break from all of this, Reimu decided, even if such a thing was short-lived. She didn't want to deal with wave after wave of powerful magic-resistant dinosaurs and end up using up precious spellcards in the process. Yes, she understood that many of the dinosaurs were resistant to magic somehow. She didn't understand why for the life of her, but it seemed to be true from what she had seen.

Throughout their flight, her dinosaur egg had remained strangely dormant. The creature inside had stopped trying to crawl out, stopped poking its head out into the sunlight, and had even fallen silent completely. At first the shrine maiden was concerned and wondered if something had happened to the dinosaur, but the creature was still breathing normally and nothing seemed to be wrong with it. Was the dinosaur sleeping? She had no idea.

Flying at this height gave Reimu and her friends a bird's eye view of the surrounding lands for many miles. Looking at the landscape from above, she had to admit that Aya's newspaper articles had been quite accurate about their reports: vast amounts of woodland had been trampled by larger dinosaurs, the Human Village had almost been taken over completely, and she could see glimpses of magical attacks in the distance – presumably where youkai and magic-users like herself were fighting back against the creatures. It did not paint an optimistic picture for the future of Gensokyo.

 _There has to be a way to stop this,_ she thought. _We'll know more once we find Patchouli, but I only hope she has some good news for us._

It was nearly two hours before they sighted the familiar form of the Scarlet Devil Mansion looming up in the distance. Relief flooded through her at finally reaching their destination, since flying for long hours could be strenuous even when it was powered by magical power alone. Similarly, she felt her friends relax a little. Now they could finally do some real research into what was really going on.

"We're here," Reimu said.

Her gaze fell upon the grounds of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and her eyes widened in shock. Hundreds of dead dinosaurs lay upon the ground – across the perimeter of the mansion's walls, down the garden path, across to the foot of the next hill…The shrine maiden hadn't expected to see so many. What was going on in this region? Why here, of all places?

"Remilia's been busy," Marisa said with a smirk.

Reimu couldn't imagine that the residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion had attacked the dinosaurs deliberately, not with numbers like that. The beasts must have attacked on their own. Most of the blood had dried by now, but the stench of the bodies encouraged her to fly higher.

"Let's have a chat with her, then," she said, changing her heading towards the main gates. "Maybe we'll catch her in one of her rare good moods."

There was a shriek from above, and a pterodactyl swooped right at her.

 _What the…? An aerial attack?_

Taken by surprise, Reimu was forced to swerve to avoid the attack. What was this? She hadn't seen any aerial dinosaurs in the area. How had she not detected it beforehand?

Then she saw the thick cloud of icy mist rotating above them. She hadn't seen it, nor thought anything abnormal about it. There was another shriek, then another...and then the sound were everywhere. Four more pterodactyls appeared out of the mist and charged at them, attacking the three girls in turn. Quickly, Marisa and Sanae brought up their defences to repel the dinosaurs. More and more of them emerged in greater numbers, circling around their group in a strange pattern. This wasn't normal.

 _Who's doing this?_

Her pulse racing, Reimu lashed out with the gohei and injured one of the creatures before it could latch onto her. It took her blow in its long neck and staggered back before being replaced by three more pterodactyls. Next to her, Marisa was fighting with another of the dinosaurs on her broom, and Sanae was blasting several away from here with a seemingly never-ending barrage of danmaku.

"Where did they come from?" Marisa said, firing her magic spells to eliminate as many of the beasts as possible. "It was clear skies for hours before we got here. The hell is this, Remilia's anti-defence dinosaur system?"

It didn't seem like it. They were still a fair distance away from the Scarlet Devil Mansion and the icy mist looked somewhat familiar to Reimu. At least a dozen of the creatures surrounded them, a whole pack of them circling them in a vulture-like fashion. Somehow, she had a feeling that pterodactyls should not be acting this way.

"Reimu! Watch out!" Sanae cried.

The dark-haired shrine maiden turned – and a stream of ice magic hurtled through the sky towards her head.

 _Ice!?..._

Her reflexes kicked in and she reversed direction, firing at the pterodactyls blocking her path. She was aware of the ice missile shifting to match her and instinctively knew that a magic-user was in the area. Reimu felt herself slam into another of the winged beasts, breaking through the circle of dinosaurs.

She risked glancing at the direction that the attack had come from – and caught sight of a larger pterodactyl behind all of the others, from which she could definitely sense a degree of magical power. It didn't feel very powerful, however, but they were still at a strategic disadvantage.

The shrine maiden maneuvered through the flying dinosaurs, sensing the ice attack homing in on her. She dodged around another of the creatures, and the icy missile struck the pterodactyls face on. The dinosaur hurtled down to the ground, shrieking its death-cry as it fell. A blast from one of Marisa's magic spells kept the rest of the beasts away from them, giving the three girls a few moments' pause.

Reimu quickly counted the remaining pterodactyls. There were about ten in number, continuing to circle them.

"That's different," Marisa observed, gesturing to the leading pterodactyl. The creature was surrounded by streaks of ice which almost seemed to take on a life of its own. "A dinosaur with magic."

Sanae shook her head. "It's not the dinosaur. I can already tell it's her."

"Yeah, I know. What a drag."

Before them, the figure of a blue-haired fairy appeared from atop the larger pterodactyl. She hovered in the air, faint wings beating on her back; a blue ribbon tied in her hair along with a blue blouse to match. The look on her face was the same as always: proud, haughty and immature as every other time they had ever encountered her. The ice fairy raised her hands triumphantly atop the pterodactyl.

"Freeze!" Cirno cried, slivers of ice magic intertwining around her fingers and forming into deadly icicles. "Freeze in your tracks!" She grinned, excitement rushing through her face. "You won't get past me, humans. I'm the strongest fairy to ever ride a pterodactyl and they will devour you at my command." Her hands curled into fists. "This is payback for last time, Reimu and Marisa! Defy me, and my Ice Pterodactyl will send you to a watery grave!"

She punched the air and all of the pterodactyls started shrieking in unison. They didn't move or attack, but it was such a dreadful din that Reimu and her friends were forced to cover their ears with a pained expression. It went on for over a minute.

Sanae raised her voice to be heard over the noise. "Is this really necessary?" she asked.

In response, Cirno punched the air again. The pterodactyls began a new wave of high-pitched shrieking which started to really hurt Reimu's ears. She didn't know what on earth the ice fairy was trying to prove, aside from the fact that pterodactyls had some of the most horrifyingly bad singing that she had ever heard, but Cirno had never been someone for logic.

With her hands clamped firmly over her ears, she attempted to mouth to Sanae what they should do next. The green-haired girl frowned at her and didn't understand a word she was saying. She should have expected as much.

"Do we really have to do this?" Reimu called out to the fairy once the noise had finally stopped again. "Fighting pterodactyls? Listening to dinosaurs sing badly? Dodging badly timed icicles? "

"Yeah, I agree," Marisa ventured, sounding disappointed. "I'm up for a fight any time, but this is Cirno. There's no point. I could beat her with both arms tied behind my back and both legs tied behind my…" She faltered a bit here. "With one leg tied behind the other leg," she amended. "That's how easy it is."

Sanae gave the magician a worried look. "Marisa, if you tied your arms and legs like that, you'd just fall off your broom."

The ice fairy straightened up indignantly. "You'll regret making a mockery of me like this," she cried. "No one insults Cirno and the Ice Pterodactyl Brigade and lives to tell the tale!"

"The Ice Ptero – _what?_ "

"My new title," Cirno said with a trace of what could be modesty, were the circumstances different. "No more shall I have to endure tolerating weaklings like yourselves. No, I shall rule the skies with my Pterodactyl Brigade and everyone will be forced to acknowledge once and for all that I..AM…THE STRONGEST!"

"But we're the only ones here. We flew for two hours before we even bumped into you."

"Enough!" she cried, raising her hands. Deadly icicles formed in the air around them. "It's time to take you all down! Nobody insults the strongest Ice Pterodactyl Fairy Rider every to fly the skies of Gensokyo!" Around them, the pterodactyls began shrieking again, ready to go in for the kill. "You'll be sorry you ever doubted me. My pterodactyls will take you apart!"


End file.
